Google's new VR Daydream View will cripple your phone Google's new Daydream View VR is knocking out users' phones. Early adopters using the headset with Google's new Pixel phones have told El Reg that the phone shuts down within minutes because of thermal issues. A Reddit thread echoes the issue, where one user comments: It's remarkable that any phone is capable of longterm VR …
Hmm, well I just bought a Pixel, and am waiting for the headset to become available, so I guess I'll find out soon enough if this is a real issue. For sure, extended VR use of my Nexus 5 with Cardboard leaves it very hot and crashy, but I kind of expected that since Pixel has actually been designed for VR use, that that wouldn't be such an issue.
On the plus side, it's winter, and the advantage of phone-based VR is you aren't tethered to a PC, so I guess I can always go outside and freeze my nuts off to keep the phone cool.
since Pixel has actually been designed for VR use
No! Noooooo! NOBODY can possibly believe that, no matter what marketing peeps claim. It's a phone FFS.
I'll wager that it was designed with "being a phone" in mind, and maybe a bit of Facebookery, Youtube, and cheapskate satnav use. The people writing the press materials wouldn't even know what VR stood for (well, maybe Victoria Regina, but not much else).
No! Noooooo! NOBODY can possibly believe that, no matter what marketing peeps claim. It's a phone FFS.
A Daydream-compliant phone is by definition designed, at least in part, for VR; that's the whole point of having the spec. Now while a manufacturer could in theory go to the trouble of meeting the fairly stringent display, sensor, and processing requirements to comply with the Daydream spec (which only the Pixel and the ZTE Axon 7 currently meet), and then not bother to do any development or testing of it under VR usage, that would seem to be a strange thing to do. Especially if the phone is being built for Google, and VR with Daydream View is one of it's more hyped features.
They could add a pipe through the phone running over the processor heat sink. Just have and input and an output at each end of the phone and have the headset run water through it. That would probably add to the weight and cost of the headset though.
I think one of the Samsung phones (and the Sony Phones) already have vapour heat pipes in them. Surely someone on youtube has already tried modifying them to get water flowing (safely) through the phone.
Just add a nuclear battery and a refillable tank of liquid nitrogen and people will enjoy the full processing power of their smart devices for more than half an hour without it going dead or setting their faces on fire. Should fit in a stylish visor with no problem.
I have a Pixel and - thanks to reading the Reg - a tinfoil hat.
My Daydream headset is on it's way so I can switch off the heating and enjoy a toasty bonce this winter.
P.S. Anyone who straps a Samsung to their face will probably end up like the poor fellow in the photo that heads the article.
Just used it for maybe 30 mins with an XL... and no issues at all.
Phone certainly got warm - but no throttle, shutdown etc.
Wonder if it's an issue with the regular non-XL (same hardware, held in a smaller "radiator" with less sticking outside of the Daydream?
I'm actually pretty impressed with it. Was cursing my idiocy for coughing up for what I suspected was a "well made cardboard" - but works well and the little controller is quite marvellous.
Does make you look like an utter tool though.
That picture is dumb and heat pipes suck because they use inflexible metal pipes and tend to require significant heatsink area/volume, so better to have the phone back resting on a silicone water bag, on a foam pad (to apply fitting pressure for different phone thicknesses and profiles), with flexible water pipes and have the water pumped through an external water cooler radiator, possibly not on the head unit. Using cool bags and other stuff below condensation temperature maybe a bad idea because any condensation could be a nuisance or even cause damage!
Yes, the Daydream gets warm, but I've used this thing repeatedly for more than 30 minutes and never encountered a device shut-down. It depends on how you use it. If it's for passive media consumption, the temperature generally doesn't go up as high as when you play games.
My biggest problem is that there's no VR browser and so for now at least you're limited to curated content made available by Google.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
