preface

2016 is destined to be a year of rapid development of VR. At present, Oculus, HTC Vive and Sony's PS VR, the three largest VR devices in the world, will be officially launched in the first half of this year. However, the price of these devices is only a small part of the total cost. If you want to experience VR with them, you need to cooperate with computers with strong performance. For example, Oculus officially announced that the minimum PC configuration requirements are desktop i5-4590+970, and the overall price of helmet plus PC is nearly 10000 yuan. HTC vive's hardware requirements will never be lower. In contrast, the PS VR used with the PS4 is very friendly, but it will still deter many people who want to experience VR but are short of money.

Nowadays, with the mobile phone hardware becoming more and more powerful, mobile phones with high-performance processors, high split screens, and gyroscopes can also achieve simple VR experience with VR boxes. The lower threshold indicates that the era of VR experience for all is coming, so all major manufacturers are aiming at this market to get a share.

Today's Pico 1 virtual reality helmet is such a VR box product used with mobile phones. Let's have a look at the details.

Unpacking

Pico's outer package is all black. Except for the logo in the box cover, there is no extra text. It is simple, grand and full of science and technology. A slant downward gap is left between the box cover and the box body, and the mint green exposed gives a fresh and lively taste. The packing box is made of skin like material, with delicate hand feel, but it is easy to leave fingerprints.

Open the box cover, you can see Pico and a paper box, which are surrounded by thick sponge to ensure that they will not be damaged during transportation. A VIP membership card is inserted in the paper box, and the headband, USB cable and a mirror cloth are in the box.

Pico shell is composed of black and white, and a high reflective transparent plastic sheet is in front of it. While the phone is hidden inside, the camera of the phone can also capture external conditions.

Pico is equipped with a pair of cycloolefin polymer lens with a diameter of 40mm. According to reports, the transmittance of the lens is up to 92%, and it can bring a large angle of view of 96 °. It is surrounded by thin and soft foam, and will not feel uncomfortable when contacting with the face for a long time.

The top of Pico is a machine switch, which is also used to connect Bluetooth and answer the phone; The roller in the middle is used to adjust the object distance. It can be used for myopia below 800 degrees. The author has no problem with myopia 400 degrees+high astigmatism.

There are charging ports and headphone ports at the bottom of the machine. As an immersive VR device, you must wear headphones to experience. After the mobile phone and Pico are connected through Bluetooth, the headset can be plugged into Pico.

On the right side are touch control panel, return key and volume key.

Pico supports 5.5 inch mobile phones at most. The iPhone 6p is just good enough to be put in, but it can't be bigger. However, Pico has no iOS APP at present, and can only be used with Android phones.

Install the headband and wear it in a dark purple color~

experience

Turn on Pico's power supply and PicoVR APP, and play after Bluetooth is connected to the mobile phone. The APP provides some videos and games, but not very rich. Now VR is still experience oriented.

PicoVR APP also supports the connection of helmet devices of other brands. In fact, the APP of this kind of products are universal. You can also download other APPs to see if there are more interesting video resources.

These helmets use gyroscopes to control the cursor, that is, shake your head Then select the content to be played by sliding the touch pad up, down, left and right. I think the operation is a little inconvenient. It would be better if it could be equipped with a physical handle.

After watching several 3D and VR videos, I felt that the effect was very good.

The first video is a 360 degree VR video called "Walking in the Cloud". It feels like you are standing on the roof. With the mobile phone's gyroscope, the picture will rotate when I bow and turn my head. After experiencing this, the phone starts to heat up, because VR still has high performance requirements for the processor. In addition, the resolution of my phone is not high enough, so the big fruit is more impressive, but it does not affect the experience. Later, I watched Jurassic World and a young MV, and the results were good.

After playing the game for a while, several games in PicoVR APP are not interesting at present. It is also because the VR industry has just started, and the supporting software has not yet come up. I hope there will be more interesting games for you to choose in the future.

In addition, you can also find some adult resources on the Internet. Without opening the APP, you can play the video directly on your mobile phone and watch it through Pico.

summary

Pico 1 virtual reality helmet, as a VR device used with mobile phones, is really satisfactory. The design is simple and elegant, comfortable to wear, and has a good endurance. The price of 369 is not high or low, which is suitable. The disadvantage is that the current APP does not support ios devices, which will lead to the loss of many users. And video game resources are still relatively few, but this is not Pico's disadvantage, but a problem that VR devices are currently facing.

2016 is the first year for VR to take off. I believe that VR technology and related resources will develop at a blowout speed. In the future, the use of VR technology in games and movies is also a major trend, so I am very optimistic about Pico's development prospects.