Freefly Mobile Virtual Reality Headset & Glide Wireless Bluetooth Controller

I ordered this item for kicks and giggles. It arrived on time, nicely boxed, and in good shape. It seems to be nice quality and comes with a carrying case. I had predownloaded some VR content but when I finished the set up of the device, it directed me to some FreeFly recommended vr content. One in particular caught my eye: VR Rollercoaster. "Oh goodie!" I thought. I downloaded the app and put the headset on and was going up and down hills and twists and loop de loops. It was amazing. For a moment. Then I passed a little man holding a sign that said, "Don't forget to look down!" When I did, it appeared as if I were at a great height and suddenly everything I ever ate in my entire life wanted out of my body. I quickly removed the headset and to my utter surprise I wasn't where I thought I was in the room. I was completely disoriented and I ran to the bathroom and held on to the sink. Copius vomit ensued. Suddenly, it was like my house had tilted or I was on a boat in a storm. I was holding on to the sink and gravity was no longer my friend and constant companion. It was pulling me away from the sink where my head was hung and otherwise occupied. I put a cold towel on my eyes and sat in complete darkness without moving a muscle. Waves of nausea and dizziness kept me out of commission for three days. I had to lie flat on my bed in cold darkness with my head pressed into the pillow to make sure it wouldn't move in the slightest. I tried to watch television during this time, but the logos that would scroll across the bottom of the screen on the Science channel started out as ripples and then turned to great waves of nausea. Your mileage may vary.

I ordered this just six days ago and it came today. Great headset. Nice wide field of view, well made, both my iPhone 4 and my Galaxy S6 fit fine. It came with a controller, which, unfortunately, had no instructions with it. It took a little bit of fiddling to figure out that you plug it into a USB cord to charge it (it didn't come with one, but my Galaxy S6 charger worked fine on it). Then you press the tiny start button in the middle and hold it down. It helps if you have a flashlight, since the labels of the buttons are in black -- on a black background. Then I had to go into my phone's settings, under Bluetooth, enable Bluetooth, wait for it to find the device, and select it. I tried it with the DebrisDefrag for Cardboard app (the first one I could find that needed the controller). To shoot things, I had to switch the little slider on the left to "game" and then press the X button to shoot down the space rocks. The explosions were very satisfying. Wearing it does get a little hot, since the leather is padding is tight against your face. It is EXTREMELY immersive. I also tried it with my favorite app -- the Go4DVR app from Goggle Tech, where you're walking around a space station. It really felt that you were there. I kept reaching out for things, and ducking under stuff. So why not five stars? No adjustment for distance between the two lenses, and the distance between the lenses and the phone. Most other mid-priced headsets have at least one of those, usually both. The Freefly guys say there's a reason for this, because of the extra-wide lenses they use or something like that, and they picked the distance that would work for most people. I do have funky vision and wear glasses sometimes, and I do appreciate it when I have the opportunity to adjust the lenses. With the Freefly, everything seemed a little out of focus to me, especially when there was text on the screen. I have a couple of other headsets -- a Goggle Tech C1-Glass, which is open sided, a couple of cardboard ones, and a Sunnypeak. The Sunnypeak would be the closest comparison in terms of price and form factor. The Freefly is much, much lighter than the Sunnypeak and is much more comfortable to wear. It also seemed a big sturdier and better designed in the way it was put together and how the phone fits into it. But the Sunnypeak has both kinds of lens adjustments, so everything is in focus. The Sunnypeak had a narrower field of view -- the Freefly screen took up pretty much your entire field of vision, thanks to those special lenses. And the Sunnypeak also didn't come with a controller, but the Freefly controller worked fine with it (since it actually works with the phone itself -- the headset is just a plastic holder.) If you don't have vision issues, of the two, I would definitely recommend the Freefly. If you do have vision issues -- well, you definitely can't wear your glasses with the Freefly (I just tried -- nope, nope, nope). Check the return policy before you buy it, or have a friend get it and try theirs, first. It's currently $85. I got mine with a promo code for about $60 (sorry, the promo already expired). The controller is sold separately for $10, so, the headset itself cost me about $50 -- and it is definitely worth the price. Especially compared to, say, the $37 Sunnypeak. And if not for the everything-slightly-out-of-focus thing, it would be worth the full $85 to me. Oh, and the Freely also comes with a nice padded carrying case. So that's another plus there.

Great for VR development due to the easy access to the screen without losing your alignment. Where it's lacking is the lack of adjust-ability. Many people I've attempted to show VR to using this headset have been largely disappointed due to their poor eyesight and inability to use glasses or make any adjustments. Also, after a year of use, the pads that hold the device in place are so deformed to the shape of my device in its case, that I can't use any other phone in it, not even my own phone with the case removed! I plan to get a different unit for demonstration purposes, but will probably still use this one for development. The FOV is great and the headset very comfortable. Fogging is bad until the lenses warm up, i usually just leave it on the desk with the display on for a short while before I bother putting it on. Once you do that, it'll stay clear under most conditions and I'm a guy who sweats very easily as soon as the air stops moving. The instructions actually recommending warming the lenses with a hair dryer to avoid fogging gave me a chuckle :) I probably would have felt better having paid $50 for it, but $75 wasn't bad at the time considering the use I've had from it. Wouldn't buy again at anything close to that rate though.