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Tech giant – Google – has always found out its own unique ways to make its product and services available to a larger mass. Over the time, the company has always put huge efforts in making new technology available to people at affordable pricing for easy and early adoption.
The company has previously made similar efforts in the VR industry as well. Back in 2014, Google launched the very affordable Google Cardboard Mobile VR Headset, with some very basic features to make more people aware of the VR world and let them have a first-hand experience to the immersive VR content. Also, Google has been offering the Daydream View headsets for all the Pixel smartphone buyers for free.
Google’s VR Headset Patent
The company has recently published its new patent with the name “Integrated mobile device packaging and virtual reality headset“. This concept is aimed at providing a relatively low-cost VR headset in the form of a smartphone packaging box which would then double as a VR headset.
The patent images show a product which basically serves as a smartphone packaging box and looks similar to the Google Cardboard VR Headset. Google believes that such an effort would encourage more people to enter the VR Space with such initial experience and then they can surely upgrade to better VR Headsets like the Daydream View for rich immersive experiences.
Image credit: RoadtoVR
This would also help Google to soon meet its goal of bringing millions of users to VR on its Android platform. At the latest MWC Expo last month, Google’s Vice President of VR, Amit Singh, said that the company has been quite successful in selling over 10 million VR Cardboard headsets and he believes such a novel idea will certainly give the company a further push.
This is certainly a novel idea and concept by Google, where several high-end smartphone buyers can also get an initial taste of the VR world. However, this is not for the first time that we are seeing a packaging box being converted into a VR headset.
Food and beverage companies like Coca-Cola and McDonalds have earlier arrived with a DIY cardboard headset made out of their packaging boxes. However, these were just a part of their marketing push, users expect something more serious from Google in terms of hardware.
lol I remember when my nephew asked me to do a DIY cardboard headset. so this is more like a paid “free samples” you get in stores, for VR, yeah?
Google always finds a nice innovative way to reach to its customers…. This VR smartphone box could be a good first-hand VR experience before switching for a bigger upgrade…