Being a huge fan of VR and AR i could not wait to try this headset because simply ZEISS. Any Nokia fan of old and now new once again will understand why and who exactly ZEISS is, We met some of the team at Nokia World in Abu Dhabi which was nice and where we go to know some more about the company.
VR has been quite the last year but seems to be gaining a bit more traction now given the focus is on AR but this head caters for both so its a win win all round.
The first thing to note here is the build quality as a whole,there is many headsets out there that are cheaper but as the saying goes you get what you pay for and this headset comes in at 69.99 and was cheaper over the holiday season and you can still pick one up for free if you buy a Nokia 8. The build quality here all round is robust and will last and it also does not have that generic look we are familiar with seeing these days with companies putting their names on them,this stands out from the rest and it looks good.
Specs
Optics
Innovative optics and precision eyeglass lenses from ZEISS ensure the ultimate immersive visual
experience. The specific optical features are,
• users don’t need to make any mechanical adjustments of the lens position. A large so-called eye-box was designed to cover most of the person’s eye distances. Also even when the headset is not perfectly centered in the face, the user still has a clear image across the entire visible area.
• Eyeglass wearers can wear their eyeglasses under the ZEISS VR ONE Plus.
• The high picture quality is constant all over the visible area. You clearly can read text all over the
visible area.
Field of view
Field of view of approx. 100°
Supported wide range of interpupillary distance (IPD)
53 ~ 77 mm
Smartphones supported
Smartphones with display size between 4.7 and 5.5 inches except the LG G4 and SONY XPERIA Z5
Premium. Please note: only compatible with smartphones featuring an accelerometer, gyro and compass.
Transparent front shield
Enables the use of smartphone cameras for augmented reality apps.
UNBOXING THE VR ONE PLUS
Setting up.
It’s a simple process you just need your smartphone,there is no adjustment required on the headset itself for the lens,you pop out the tray with a compatible smartphone and away you go I would however keep phones with fingerprint sensors on the front placed to the right as the holder can interfere with the sensor see the image below, Also before use ensure you have the device aligned correctly in the middle you will see two notches,one at the top and bottom and a centre line as you would find on similar headsets of good quality.
After this is all complete you are good to go, ZEISS have a suite of apps available to check out first if you like and they are quite good to get you started if you have not delved into the VR experience yet. You are not confined to just using their own VR apps you can use any VR app from the Play Store or iTunes and if you are familiar with VR and have your own apps already downloaded you can fire away and enjoy the experience.
ZEISS VR ONE Connect also gives you access to a large number of premium VR games on SteamVR with your mobile VR headset. Connect your smartphone to your gaming PC and the two ZEISS VR ONE Connect Bluetooth controllers and experience premium VR games with three degrees of freedom (3DoF) controls.
Maintenance
This will be easy to keep in check for several reasons, its comfortable to wear for long periods so over time you will want to give it a good scrub but you can daily if you feel the need to. The sponge that surrounds the face is detachable which was clever thinking and so is the face mask that the sponge is attached too. This leaves easy access to the lens and surrounding areas to be easily cleaned which again is important especially if you tend to share your headset around.The straps also adjustable and removable and easy to do so can be just taken off.
Controls
There is none. Nope none at all which might seem odd for those familiar with VR headsets but there was no need for them as it focused fine for me on all games I tried the only issue is the lens are not adjustable so for some it might be a problem depending on eyesight but you can like any other VR headset use a bluetooth connected controller if you like this still works as you would expect.
The front of the headset is clear so this allows you to see inside for those techie heads and want to see how things work and not only that it allows the headset to double as an AR tool which is great and the way forward they have future proofed this headset and the AR experience is good you get a cube with the package to test it out.
Overall thoughts
Having tried around 30 headsets now this is one of the better ones in this category their lenses make a difference a big difference and what I expected from ZEISS the price is not bad either so if you want quality you pay for it,the build is great its easy to maintain and comes with a tray that supports much more phones rather than limiting itself to a select few like some companies do. The only thing is the lenses are not adjustable, ZEISS have a content library which is not mature as yet but you can use any app from the respective stores to move along with your experience its pushing toward Gear VR territory but not quite but again its up there for the money and you will enjoy what you can so on such a headset.
