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What tech is inside the Gear VR??

FMAVcanada
Explorer
Is there an added accelerometer inside? A more accurate one?

What other technologies reside in the Gear VR goggles that optimize or enhance the VR experience.

I've disabled Oculus Home menu, and tried simply using the cardboard app, or round me app with the phone in the Gear VR.. But it's much less smooth in its playback of VR content.

the Gear VRs playback via Oculus apps is much much smoother and more accurate head/motion tracking.
7 REPLIES 7

thealgorithm
Protege
The Gear VR has its own sensors which operate at a far higher resolution than the one in the phone. Also the touchpad and buttons are on the side which are all connected via usb when inserting the phone into the device.

The software also operates at a low level enabling low persistence and less latency

FMAVcanada
Explorer
"thealgorithm" wrote:
The Gear VR has its own sensors which operate at a far higher resolution than the one in the phone. Also the touchpad and buttons are on the side which are all connected via usb when inserting the phone into the device.

The software also operates at a low level enabling low persistence and less latency


What "sensors"?

Accelerometers? Magnetometer? Barometer? IR?

mduffor
Protege
"FMAVcanada" wrote:
"thealgorithm" wrote:
The Gear VR has its own sensors which operate at a far higher resolution than the one in the phone. Also the touchpad and buttons are on the side which are all connected via usb when inserting the phone into the device.

The software also operates at a low level enabling low persistence and less latency


What "sensors"?

Accelerometers? Magnetometer? Barometer? IR?


The GearVR has the same IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) as the Rift, which is accurate and sampled at a much higher rate than the one in your phone. The higher sample rate allows them to have more numbers to work with for a given time step in order to throw out and/or smooth out noisy values. I believe there is a compass in there as well to help with drift correction. (So yes, accelerometers and magnetometers are used). I don't believe there is a need for barometers, IR, altimeters, thermometers, etc. I don't know if there is an internal gyroscope or not.)

Additionally, the GearVR has a proximity sensor to detect when the unit is on your face (something is near the inside surface), a back button (mapped to the key event type AKEYCODE_BACK), and a touchpad (mapped to the motion event with source AINPUT_SOURCE_MOUSE).

The Cardboard apps have chunkier movement because they are using the phone's IMU which runs at a much lower sample rate and may or may not correct for drift all that much, lack the kernel modifications which allows the GearVR apps to run uninterrupted and at a higher priority than Android apps are normally allowed, and the ability to set CPU and GPU performance levels to only spend battery and heat where and when you need it. The GearVR apps also have Time Warp to keep the motion-to-photon time lower, as opposed to something like the Vive which just tries to predict when the per-frame refreshes take place.

This may help with some of the low level details: http://msl.cs.uiuc.edu/~lavalle/papers/ ... tAnt14.pdf

Cheers,
mduffor

darkangel6415
Explorer
"FMAVcanada" wrote:
"thealgorithm" wrote:
The Gear VR has its own sensors which operate at a far higher resolution than the one in the phone. Also the touchpad and buttons are on the side which are all connected via usb when inserting the phone into the device.

The software also operates at a low level enabling low persistence and less latency


What "sensors"?

Accelerometers? Magnetometer? Barometer? IR?


Such a haste response, are you trying to build your own oculus store if so always remember to exceed what you copy not just be like it

FMAVcanada
Explorer
Thanks for the details mduffor! Very informative and helpful answer. This explains a lot of the differences in performance between Cardboards and Gear VR.

I assume HMD's such as the Zeiss VR One will function much like a generic Cardboard HMD. Does anyone know for sure?

"mduffor" wrote:
"FMAVcanada" wrote:
"thealgorithm" wrote:
The Gear VR has its own sensors which operate at a far higher resolution than the one in the phone. Also the touchpad and buttons are on the side which are all connected via usb when inserting the phone into the device.

The software also operates at a low level enabling low persistence and less latency


What "sensors"?

Accelerometers? Magnetometer? Barometer? IR?


The GearVR has the same IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) as the Rift, which is accurate and sampled at a much higher rate than the one in your phone. The higher sample rate allows them to have more numbers to work with for a given time step in order to throw out and/or smooth out noisy values. I believe there is a compass in there as well to help with drift correction. (So yes, accelerometers and magnetometers are used). I don't believe there is a need for barometers, IR, altimeters, thermometers, etc. I don't know if there is an internal gyroscope or not.)

Additionally, the GearVR has a proximity sensor to detect when the unit is on your face (something is near the inside surface), a back button (mapped to the key event type AKEYCODE_BACK), and a touchpad (mapped to the motion event with source AINPUT_SOURCE_MOUSE).

The Cardboard apps have chunkier movement because they are using the phone's IMU which runs at a much lower sample rate and may or may not correct for drift all that much, lack the kernel modifications which allows the GearVR apps to run uninterrupted and at a higher priority than Android apps are normally allowed, and the ability to set CPU and GPU performance levels to only spend battery and heat where and when you need it. The GearVR apps also have Time Warp to keep the motion-to-photon time lower, as opposed to something like the Vive which just tries to predict when the per-frame refreshes take place.

This may help with some of the low level details: http://msl.cs.uiuc.edu/~lavalle/papers/ ... tAnt14.pdf

Cheers,
mduffor

mduffor
Protege
"FMAVcanada" wrote:
Thanks for the details mduffor! Very informative and helpful answer. This explains a lot of the differences in performance between Cardboards and Gear VR.

I assume HMD's such as the Zeiss VR One will function much like a generic Cardboard HMD. Does anyone know for sure?


Yeah, at the moment all other smartphone based VR works through the Cardboard SDK, or something like the Durovis Dive SDK, which just use the phone's sensors to track orientation.

Supposedly new processors like Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 will be able to achieve the higher IMU sampling that Oculus does, through its Compute DSP and HVX acceleration, though either the code that is polling the IMU directly or the Android system itself will need to be updated to take advantage of this. Even so, non-GearVR apps won't have the execution privileges or the GPU/CPU throttling capabilities of the GearVR compatible Samsung phones.

I'm sure other phone makers will catch on over the next couple of years, but I haven't heard of anything in the short term. Likely Google will spearhead the changes to Android eventually since they have stepped up their interest and investment in Cardboard VR.

Cheers,
mduffor

Dilip
Rising Star
Google is doing it right now.

https://vr.google.com/daydream/
https://vr.google.com/

Google Daydream View headset though does not have any IMU or Gyroscope or Compass it still performs on par with Gear VR. Reason being selective parts deployed in Google Pixel Phone Google also has refined android Nougat to give low level access to VR apps allowing better interpretation of sensor data, Amoled screens have fast pixel switching, less motion blur, more fluid vivid display (Samsung already had AMOLED display since Galaxy S2) and overall good experience. practically google gearing up phones for VR. using Pixel XL as prototype its also encouraging other phone manufacturers to come up with their DayDream Ready device. Here Googles vision is not only earn profit from their VR Device (Headset + Phone) but to create the Software Eco System (Android of VR) so that it can yield sturdy increasing benefits on long term.  

Benefits of Google DayDream View System

1) Interaction control separated from headset made headset practically totally passive, thus light weight, easy for storage and practically damage proof from dropping, pushing and mishandles.

2) DayDream Remote can be very useful on many apps, possibilities are endless.There is no need to invest in to joystick other than DayDream like Gear VR needs one, Standard controller makes easy programing for developers as known device on Eco system (much like console)

3) Phone is always open to development, there can be many iteration over years, every year does not require to change design of headset since it does not house any electronics.

Limitation

1) Light bleed is issue as its not totally closed headset

2) Controller should be mapped, presently its not and do drift over period of use which requires to single key press re-calibration.

3) Controller position tracking is first priority of work for google, if not the whole headsets positional tracking.

Still its neat device, worth try for all those who can try it.