Before buying a VR headset in 2020 here are the Essential List of things to consider

Sep 27, 2020

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VR is the new drill for gamers, with it comes much hassel about what is the trend and how to keep up with it. To be honest it can leave you significantly unsatisfied with the choices you make . That’s what the ongoing excitement around VR is meant to create among gamers and developers. Should it be this way? - Probably Yes, if at all a thing is exciting enough people should be ready to chop their heads off for it (virtually so). Is this healthy for you , Mentally and Financially so - Certainly not XD. What were you expecting me to say. My aim for this article is to provide a comprehensive guide that would direct your thoughts into making the best choice for your “Cause”.

These are the steps guiding us through this article:

Overview

  • Introduction
  • Do you need an Oculus Rift S?
  • The essentials to consider before making a choice
  • How to go about making a satisfying VR headset choice for your CAUSE.

Introduction

Honestly you might have had conflicting opinions and felt unsatisfaction with choices you may have made concerning VR products till now, but that’s only normal. As humans, when we are excited about a new trend, we tend to feel every choice we made was the wrong one, we are always looking for the perfect one. In truth, this has been the same with every trend-setting product released till date - Iphone X, Windows Updates, Branded Clothes etc.

Do you need an Oculus Rift S

Do you need an Oculus Rift S vr headset now? - Chances are you don’t need one. As is the case, gamers feels like they surely do, but this in truth is not always necessary or essential to their needs. I consider myself a gamer, not just that - I’m passionate about experiencing VR gaming. But I can’t see myself buying an Oculus Rift S with mine or my parent’s money for some important reasons, to find out if you need an oculus rift s, consider these questions below and answer them according to your own situation:

  • How many hours do you spend on VR gaming every week? Less than 10 hours and you probably do not
  • Can you afford the cost of an Oculus Rift S with you own personal income?
  • What do you hope to achieve with an Oculus Rift: Intense game competition, Youtube Let’s play videos, VR- game Development Let’s consider the following:
  • For Intense Gaming and Youtube Let’s play videos, it’s possible in every respect to opt for a more affordable headset that would work just as well as gaming on an Oculus headset.
  • For vr development, it’s not advised to limit your testing headset to an Oculus or better still, as a beginner, Oculus supported games are NOT the best starting point for you.

The conclusion - No matter what use case you want a VR headset for if your budget does not adequately allow for it, an Oculus Rift S is not the best option to consider as other more affordable brands can achieve your goals for you without hassels. That being said, there still exist a lot of options to consider which can prove confusing andd intangible for a noob to comtemplate.

In the next few sections, I would give you a working cheat sheet to help you contemplate and secure the best decision for your personal unique situatiuon. Read on!!

Features/Essentials of a VR headset

Before we start, I want to assure you that while surface-discussing the features of a VR headset, I choose to leave the technical details alone on Wikipedia because I assume you fall into the category of Gamer/VR Dev and sincerely just want a straight-forward honest discussion on these terms. Now let’s begin

Some essential key point features of VR headset that Brands look to include in their products are:

  • Quality: The quality of a VR headset refers to it’s rendering power. i.e how fast it is able to play 3D graphics every second. In computing language this is called fps or frames per seconds. One small detail to note: because a vr headset has two viewing angle(providing separate images for each eye), it has to render 2X the graphics of a game whereas a regular PC or gaming device renders just once. As a result, this leads to low quality in some experiences or frame-skipping. Vr headsets also come with gyroscopes, accelerometer and magnetometers, the power of these head-tracking sensors dirctly determines the quality of the headset. Now you know some of the details, it’s necessary to check the capacity of a headset so you know what to expect before-hand. Today as technology keeps advancing, VR headsets comapnies are finding it less difficult to equip their product with working quality systems.

  • Control: Some VR Headset comes with controllers equipped, this is a device that enables hand-tracking so the player’s movement can be simulated in the Vr world. Most games today require a player’s movement for interaction within the game, so this is a very important feature. An addition to controllers Haptic feedback is the sense of touch designed to provide information to the end user, is already built into a number of existing virtual reality controllers

  • Comfort: Most VR Brands live up comfortably to this particular feature, but certainly when considering low priced headsets you have to consider the comfortability it comes with. In short,

    1. Does the headset feel comfortable to wear for long use
    2. Can the strap - if it comes with one, be adjusted or removed for cleaning
    3. Does it feel itchy or heavy to put on These are some questions to consider when checking the comfort that comes with a VR headset.

How to go about making a satisfying VR headset choice for your CAUSE.

Here I would highlight some necessary steps you can take to choose the best vr headset for you current situation and needs. There are essentially, three categories of VR headset when grouped based on price:

  • low-priced headsets
  • medium-priced headsets
  • high-cost headsets

In all cases and situations, people use products & items differently. Some use it more, other less. Defining what your proirities are in using a vr headset would already tell you which group you belong to. To make the selection process easier for you, I would highlight some popular use cases of a vr headset today.

Popular Use-Cases of a VR headset

  • Gaming: By far, the most popular use case of a vr headset is for playing Vr games. You have to ask yourself two very important question: How much time do you spend on gaming?, Do you spend money to purchase high-quality vr games?. After arriving at the answers to these questions, make a decision on what kind of vr headset you need:
  • Usually if you spend less than 5 hrs a week playing vr games & you don't spend money buying vr games, I recommend going for a medium-priced headsets. Below I will give you a variety of options to choose from
  • On the other hand, go for a highpriced headset if you spend substancial time and money on vr games, if you use a headset professionally like a for youtube channel
  • VR Development: With that mentioned, a group of people dedicated to developing for vr exists and if you fall under that group, I have got you covered. Likewise, two main sub-groups exixst:
  • Do you develop vr games for sale are you an intermediate vr developer, if so a medium quality headset should work fine for testing prototype and scenes according to the quality of your games.
  • Are you a beginner or hobbyist to vr games development. You might be an indie game dev but are not yet making money from your games. If you fall into anyone of these, a low-priced headset would do the job for you and also saved you irrelevant expenses

Now that’s sorted, by now you should have a decision in mind based on which cases are similar to your needs. Below you can review the headsets of your choice before making a purchase decision and start living your dream of owning a virtual reality headset for whatever purpose; gaming, entertainment, development etc.