VR Googles-Hummmm

[Two-Six]

It looks like VR goggles are going to be a hot-selling Xmas present this year. 

A lot of them are the kind that lets you strap on a smart phone to the front of them.

I am not sure this is a great idea. You could be spending  potentially quite a long time with a mobile phone emitting RF energy into your eyeball sockets.

I don';t think that can be a healthy thing to do.

I know the mobile phone industry say that the RF emissions from a phone are harmless......IF you hold a phone at least two inches from your head, don';t talk on it for prolonged periods, and have skull that';s a thick as an average US Marine';s skull. 

Now....Call me a tin foil hat wearer if you like....If you think RF radiation is harmless and has no effect on the body, OK, great, carry on.  I hope your right.

What I will say is that I have had an MRI scan that uses powerful magnetic pulses, I really felt that, it was borderline quite unpleasant and afterwards I felt very weird.

I have also stood behind the face of the antenna array of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning Radar radar at Fylingdales.  I can tell you I felt that too.  People aren';t allowed to be in that area for more than 10 minutes at a time...

Granted, these are examples of RF emitters operating at very high power levels and not really comparable to the relatively minute energy levels a phone produces. 

My point is that according to the mobile phone industry non-ionising radiation or radio waves aren';t supposed to have any biological effect on the body, I would say they certainly do at high power level anyway. I would also say that nobody really knows for sure what prolonged exposure to RF energy has on your chromosomes, cells and other biological systems in the body.   

Further to this, the signals communication equipment transmits is commonly pulsed or modulated and this modulation or pulsing may have separate effects on the body';s biological structures and systems.

So is it really a good idea to use these goggles?

[Saleem]

[hoverfly]

most t/x  instructions recomend keeping your pinkies  at least 5cm from the antenna to meet rf exposure safety limits as determined by fcc. (spektrum DX9 hand book  p 45.)

[nate80]

The damage being done to your eyes having to force-focus on a screen positioned so close to your peepers is likely to be more damaging than any radiation that a phone will output during the same amount of time.

But if radiation is really a real concern and you';ve got the funds spare go grab a playstation vr, oculus rift or HTC vive instead. They';re all miles better than mobile vr anyway. 

[Friskle]

i love my PSVR, best thing i bought this year.

[nate80]

i love my PSVR, best thing i bought this year.

Same here. I was so pleased to be blown away by it. It';s got such potential. I do get bad motion sickness from some games though. Anything where you';re controlling a vehicle with omnidirectional movement and look-to-fire tends to make me sick as a dog.    Here they lie also brings on pretty awful motion sickness.

[Friskle]

Same here. I was so pleased to be blown away by it. It';s got such potential. I do get bad motion sickness from some games though. Anything where you';re controlling a vehicle with omnidirectional movement and look-to-fire tends to make me sick as a dog.    Here they lie also brings on pretty awful motion sickness.

i did at first, but seem to have gotten over it, Valkyrie did it the worst, but now have online games on that without issue :)

Dont know if you have, but i downloaded from the PS store Call of Duty Jackel VR Experience, its free and you just try to shoot down as many enemies as you can in the alotted time, rinse and repeat..but i love the cockpit on it..I enjoy Tumble VR also..was surprised with that, didnt think i would like it, but love it now.

[Doug]

Glad to see the positive comments re PSVR my son is after one for Xmas and to that end just picked up a PS4 Pro for his birthday with COD Infinate warfare/Modern Warfare as well  so just need to get the other stuff that the PSVR requires some extra VR capable games and he should be good to go?

Doug

[Wyntrblue]

another vote for the psvr. love mine!

i am glued to eve valkery which is just awsome!

[Sweet Pickle]

The choice is clear, do something you';re not sure of and slap your Galaxy S7 to your face... or splash out and invest in real VR.
I have the Oculus and (also touch on pre-order). Haven';t had time to use it since launch but it';s massively impressive. If 14 hr working days didn';t leave me f00ked I';d be on it a lot more.

[nate80]

i did at first, but seem to have gotten over it, Valkyrie did it the worst, but now have online games on that without issue :)

Dont know if you have, but i downloaded from the PS store Call of Duty Jackel VR Experience, its free and you just try to shoot down as many enemies as you can in the alotted time, rinse and repeat..but i love the cockpit on it..I enjoy Tumble VR also..was surprised with that, didnt think i would like it, but love it now.

I reckon I';m never going to get over the motion sickness of some games.  I seem to suffer from certain illicit movements quite badly.  My brain just refuses to be fooled into believing it';s moving when it knows my body is staying still.

It';s only certain games though, in particular games that put you inside a motorised vehicle of some kind that moves over solid ground and has you move the craft with the directional sticks whilst aiming the guns with your head/view.  Battlezone is like this, so is Scavengers (on the PSVR Worlds disc) and also RIGS.  They make my body overheat and sweat, my head ache, go dizzy and want to hurl.  ';Here They Lie'; does the same thing.  Lots of people have complained about that game though.  Movement feels so unnatural it';s ridiculous.  The smooth motion of movement only works for me when playing flying games, either in the sky or in space - when you would actually feel almost or entirely weightless.  My brain can just about buy into that (with some persuasion I should add).

Thanks for mentioning the Jackal demo experience Friskle.  I downloaded it (though I had to search for Jackal to find it?) and it was good fun.  It';s a shame that you can';t invert the Y axes though.  Back-to-front flight controls are very annoying.  You get into a dogfight and pull back to roll upward in order to target an enemy ship but instead end up diving downward away from all the action and get shot by the baddy in the process!

I';ve only played the Eve Valkyrie Demo so far but I loved it.    I actually really liked the PSVR Demo experience with the little guys you have to go save.  And the Alumette movie was impressive.  Driveclub is good.  Not great, but a good experience.  It makes me feel sick until I learn the track layout and know which direction to look in when approaching a corner.  As long as I look into every corner straight at the track I';m heading for I';m ok.     It';s a bit like motorcycling in real life.  You look where you want to go.

I haven';t found anyone who';s tried my PSVR who hasn';t suffered some form of motion sickness yet.  Some are worse than others but everyone';s felt at least a little queasy after a short use.  I love it though.  It';s so immersive.  Once they get the feel of movement right, improve the resolution (an issue with the PSVR in my opinion - though not the Oculus from what I';ve heard) and expand the field of view (so it feels less like looking through a divers mask) it';ll be truly epic.  PSVR 2, I guess!   ::)

I can';t wait to see what developers come up with over the next year or two.  I just hope it';s not a project like the Vita that see';s immediate support at launch and then quietly dries up, keels over and dies.

[Friskle]

Glad to see the positive comments re PSVR my son is after one for Xmas and to that end just picked up a PS4 Pro for his birthday with COD Infinate warfare/Modern Warfare as well  so just need to get the other stuff that the PSVR requires some extra VR capable games and he should be good to go?

Doug

Just upgraded to the Pro, and ssold my PS4 the same day i advertised it..mind you was a bargain :)  i also find the Pro loads games a lot faster and everything does run far smoother than the Original one did, Battlefield 1 looks a lot better on it imho.

As Nate mentioned, Eve Valkyrie is superb, had some great online space combat, damn im better on that than COD or Battlefield lol, i actually have a good kill ratio for a change :)  Tumble VR is about 7 quid iirc, a puzzle game very good once you get the hang of it, also Nate mentioned one on the Demo VR disk, your moving the  kittke PS fella around, basically a platform game, but its really good..

its definately worth buying the PSVR, one great thing, you can be playing on the VR and people can still watch the TV, as everything you need to do is through the VR unit.
mate has the HTC Vive, and the games are rubbish, look great, but little content, after using my PSVR, hes now getting one for his PS4.