alex-faaborgAt the company’s annual I/O conference, Google announced the Daydream VR platform and mobile headset that will be coming to the latest Android phones later this year. There’s a DIY dev kit that you can start using today to start developing Daydream-ready apps, and Google has also released a Google VR Unity SDK that includes a number of DaydreamLabs Controller Playground examples to demonstrate different user interactions with the 3DOF controller.

LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST

I had a chance to catch up with Google VR’s Alex Faaborg at the Casual Connect conference where he talked about some of the VR design best practices, some of the early survey results from Google showing an average VR play time of 30 minutes per session, what can be learned from Pokémon Go, the differences between Tango and Daydream app design, social norms of using VR around other people, and the future of conversational interfaces.

Here’s the presentation from Google I/O on Designing for Daydream:

Support Voices of VR

Music: Fatality & Summer Trip

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Kent Bye
  • DiGiCT Ltd

    He is in most cases right.

    – AR and VR are totally different to devlop apps in.
    – Mobile VR will be the biggest amount of users.
    – Daydream will be the biggest platform as GearVR only supports specific Samsung phones only and lacks a descend controller.
    – VR and AR developers realy need to rethink on how to build as you cant just devlop the same way as before, it is more complex and takes much more effort and time.
    – Visuals need to be good enough to let people feel they are in that place, it is the 1st thing people will notice in VR before they start playing.
    – Gameplay is second people will decide on as thats the 2nd thing people will explore in VR.
    – Motion sickness is the hardest part to solve and never can be solved 100% as people have different weakness for certain motions where others dont have it at all.
    The 2 mayor ones are locomotion and not having any G-Forces.

    Unfortunately there are still a lot of VR products be released which dont fulfill those needs as the devs just worked in their old fashion way, resulting in a non good VR product.

    As well as mobile VR as PC or console VR can be lots of fun, but the real VR excitement will be VR arcade places, as they will have VR machines which can let you walk, bycycle, skiing, or even get gforces.
    I been in some of those machines developed by some companies here, it will let it feel much better and realistic but it needs a lot of space.
    Thats why the real awesome VR will be in Arcade or Entertainment locations.

    Great podcast, he really knows what he is talking about, im waiting for the release of DayDream device and i prefer to have Google’s own one with also Tango enabled as I devlop for both techs and realy know those issues AR has without proper environment tracking, it really limits the AR app with at least 50% of what it could have been.