This is the excellence headstrap with Battery from Aubika. A formidable competitor to the meta elite battery strap. Coming in at a current amazon price of $50 does this headstrap have what it takes to take down the $95 1st party giant.

First let's take a look at the design and durability. Aubika decided to change things up with their strap and give it a little more of a sleek design with the protruding edge running across the middle of the strap. Giving it that 1968 dodge charger vibe. Okay maybe that’s a stretch but I like that its different from the other headstraps out there.  

Moving to the back of the head strap we see the battery also has a sleek aesthetic with gloss inlays running across and then  around turn-wheel size adjuster that stretches from a head circumference of 21 inches to 28 inches for all types of skull sizes. The battery cable is solid quality and I appreciate the design of the side cable clip that gives room for an oculus link cable. 

The side straps are very durable and flexible and according to aubika have been tested to withstand 18 thousand twists just  like this, so we shouldn’t see any crack jobs like the meta version any time soon or hopefully ever.

When it comes to specs, it's a 5 thousand milamphour battery which is a touch more than the meta version at about 4700. This strap will extend your blade and sorcery play time another 2 to 3 hours and allows for pass-through charging for your quest and the strap’s battery at the same time. On the top of the battery you’ll see 4 led light indicators letting you know the levels of charge left in the battery along with an on/off button for those like me who don’t keep their headset charging constantly. The battery has Over-Current, Overcharge, Overload, and Over-Temperature protection thats a lot of overs, baked in so you won’t fry your headset or the battery strap itself if you leave it plugged in for too long. This may be trivial and a personal preference but I like how they placed the charger plug on the bottom of the battery rather than the top to prevent awkward cable bends when charging with the headset upright.

Sitting in front of that battery is the skull cradle with a material that closely resembles the meta elite battery strap and the same goes for the over the head velcro strap, which is fine but personally I prefer a thicker padding on both, mainly because I’m bald and like feist, I feel it all. 

Overall this headstrap is a quality choice, made with eco friendly materials and a good savings compared to the elite battery strap. I do wish it had thicker padding on the mohawk strap and skull cradle which when I reached out to the aubika team they said they are working on sprucing that up on their next design. In my opinion this headstrap is the right choice if you are wanting to upgrade to the elite style battery strap and of course want to save money, which makes you smart. You’ll find the amazon link in the description and at the time of recording this video you can get it for $50 which is a great deal for a solid quest 2 battery strap. 

 Feel free to ask questions in the comments and I’ll answer them and of course I’ll catch you in the next quickie.

Thanks to an oopsie by VR developer Bit Planet, the makers of the Ultrawings games posted what looks to be a PSVR 2 in the wild in someone’s spine indented leather office chair.  It’s fair to assume this is more than likely a dev kit but it does look very much like the production design we have seen from Sony. It even had two cables still in plastic packaging so Internet sleuthers you tell me is this a dev kit or what we will see in our living rooms? Bit Planet gave the tweet a few hours but then removed it after garnering a few hundred retweets and a lengthy thread. In the thread below their redo tweet with a stock PSVR2 image Bit Planet claims it was fake news but great photoshop. Fake or not this was some good publicity for the VR devs, I just hope they didn’t break any NDA’s they had with sony. 

Speaking of developers, the company with all VR headsets Meta found itself in the hotseat this week with developers as a story came out that some devs are not happy with Meta’s 30% cut in their app store. Especially after Zuckerberg has openly criticized app stores on Andorid and Apple being a quote unique stranglehold as a gatekeeper of what gets on phones” The 30% to the app store cut is standard across steam, google play and the apple app store. Meta defends its share by saying unlike apple and android its easy to download apps through third party stores giving sidequest as an example. Obviously the baked in Meta app store that comes with the headset is going to get the bulk of the players eyes so I’m not sure that’s exactly a fair point. Sidequest is a great third party store and even with its newly released easy install setup you still need to know how to enable dev mode on your headset to access it. Which I'm not sure everyone would want to do. I guess on the bright side 30% is better than the 50% meta is taking from horizon worlds creators…But if you do want to learn how to download the new easy install version of sidequest and access their appstore in your headset I made a tutorial this week, expand the description to find the link.

On the other side of the coin, meta did finally release video recording settings for the quest this week. Well for developers for now at least. If you have made a developer account for your quest you can download the oculus developer hub and sign in. Once your headset is connected you can check out the video settings they made available in the dev hub 2.6 update. Including  4k, 1440p and 1080 60fps widescreen options. And the real winner in my eyes is the bit rate options for higher quality captures and less noise and artifacting. In a helpful touch, when you choose a widescreen mode and single eye view for recording,... inside the headset you are given black bars on the top and bottom to let you know what is and isn’t being captured. Hopefully this will become a feature for all to access in upcoming quest firmware updates but the caveat here is that when you record with high settings it does effect game play performance and I’ve seen frame drops, but hey I’m just glad it’s an option now.  

In VR Game news just a quick reminder for the PCVR gang out there the steam summer sale is blazing hot right now and running until July 7th. So if you haven’t yet go grab half life alyx now for half off and a ton of other great games with big discounts. Personally I picked up the survival game the forest for 5 bucks and I mean payday 2 with its VR mode is 99 cents so yeah. I’ve linked the VR store sale in the description. Also can someone let me know if Rick and Morty’s virtual rickeality is any good? I mean at $5 I know I should just do it but I figured it doesn hurt to ask.

For those of you looking forward to the new Among Us VR adaptation from schell games we got a little update from the games project director Mike traficante in an interview with VR Scout. When asked about the teams plans for future updates he stated, “Right now it’s all about getting the game out. But I mean, we’re close and we already know that we’re going to continue to add stuff to it. I think most of our questions about what we do next—whether it’s a new map or whether it’s more hats or whether it’s, I don’t know, wristwatches or something weird—it’s all going to depend on what we see players doing and asking for and where the community has excitement.” So I guess the good news here is that they are close to finishing up and hopefully we will get a solid release date soon. Mike also revealed a new among us task built for vr in the game where you have to lean over in real life long enough to have your character's face scanned without looking away. Hopefully you won’t get chopped in half while uploading your yellow mug to the spaceship data base.

In some fun news VR dev and youtuber Valem challenged himself to create a VR game fully inside his quest 2 headset in 24 hours. Using horizon workrooms he prepped his idea from scratch and then accessed his computer virtually for coding. He then used shapes XR to design the game world and Virtuoso for the soundtrack. The journey is a wild one culminating in a hang gliding experience you can play yourself. Checkout his channel in the description below and make sure to watch his video where he created the largest VR game using an outdoor athletic track, quest passthrough and a bicycle.  

Sadly this weeks vr news has come to an end but just like that weird guy on the bus, I’ll see you next week.

Sidequest Easy Install: https://youtu.be/0OGATkBy3DM

Steam VR Summer Sale: https://store.steampowered.com/vr

Valem Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ValemVR

Sidequest the app that lets you sideload and download games from applab and other vr developers just made it easier to get those new games onto your quest headset. Here’s how.

If you haven’t used sidequest before you will first need to setup an oculus developer account. Head over to https://developer.oculus.com/ and sign up using your facebook slash Oculus account and then head to https://developer.oculus.com/manage/organizations/create.

Now that you have dev mode ready head over to sidequestvr.com and set up an account you’ll need this here shortly. Next download and install the new sidequest easy installer from the get sidequest link in the top bar on their site and then plug in your quest to your computer. You may need to give the USB connection access inside the headset so click allow if you see this prompt and 

then back on the computer inside the easy sidquest installer app check to for a dot indicator next to headset connected. Once that dot is green you can then click the pink install in your headset button. You’ll get the confetti and now you are good to head back into your headset and under the app library panel go to the top right and choose unknown sources and then sidequest app. 

Memorize this code and head to the link in the message or the sidequest homepage where you are logged in with your account and click your circle icon in the top right then link my sidequest. Enter your unique code and boo ya now you are set up. 

Finally jump back into your headset and you’ll see the window has changed to the sidequest app library where you can search for games and apps that won’t necessarily show up in the regular quest store or are in early development in the app lab like dungeon maker or the contentious gorilla tag. 

You can also now more easily check out some new custom home environments by clicking that little menu burger in the top left then choose custom homes. Find on you like, and click the pink download button. For your first download you’ll see an android app dialogue box to install unknown apps, click settings, move the slider to allow from this source, click back and then finally install.

To view your new custom home click the little oculus home icon up in the top right and the virtual environment page will appear scroll down and find your new home click and now you are in a whole new world. 

Well now I’m here in the holodeck and I’m gonna go to my imaginary happy place byeeee

Apple CEO Tim cook gave us a possible little baby tease for apples rumored VR headset. In an interview with china daily. The reporter asked what are the key factors for AR products and headsets to succeed in the consumer market and tim responded saying the critical thing to any technology including ar is putting humanity at the center of it and thats what we focus on every day. Timmy cook went on to later say We’re still in the early innings of how this tech will evolve and I couldn’t be more excited about the opportunities we see in this space. Stay tuned and you’ll see what we have to offer. TIM! What does this mean!?! Are we ever going to put that apple watch wrist band headstrap around our skulss and see inside the macintosh meteverse!? Please mac daddy tim please… put that m2 all over my face.

You probably saw it but zuck and the reality labs team over at meta showed off some of their prototypes and the challenges they are trying to overcome in creating the perfect VR headset of the future.

The prototypes featured had some loveable names like the butterscotch headset that focused on increasing resolution, starburst man they love candy over at meta, which was built to research how to bring higher dynamic range to VR, and the gem of the interview slash showcase holocake 2 which naturally uses holography to bring all of their research together in a small form factor that according to mark can play any pcvr title but that catch you ask? it needs a fancy pants laser to run which isn’t exactly cheap or readily available. But hey meta is putting their billions to building VR of the future and I guess we can’t be mad about that.

Reality Labs Chief scientist Michael Abrash finished the showcase by sharing what a complete next gen display system could look like in a concept design entitled Mirror Lake. Which sounds like a show from the mid 2000’s on abc family. Previously on Mirror lake….This unbuilt high concept design combines advanced eye tracking, varifocal technology, and holographic lenses to make every piece of the headset thin and flat and plans to have prescription correction built in so there will be no glasses in the metaverse people. Its just not what mark wants.

Speaking of the metaverse and what mark wants some tech giants are coming together to hold a metaverse standards forum next month. As stated on the forums website, The Forum will focus on pragmatic, action-based projects such as implementation prototyping, hackathons, plugfests, and open-source tooling to accelerate the testing and adoption of standards, while also developing consistent terminology and deployment guidelines. Just a few of the high profile members include adobe, qualcomm, sony, nvidia, meta and of course ikea. So you can get frustrated building a SÖDERHAMN sectional in your virtual living room.

The Forum will not create standards itself but will coordinate requirements and resources to foster the creation and evolution of standards within standards organizations working in relevant domains. So here’s to you tech giants lets make the metaverse a magical place where our data isn’t sold to everyone who wants to make me buy solar panels… Am I the only one getting those ads everywhere?

The quest summer sale went live this week with up to 40% off for some titles and some very good deals on bundles. Make sure to check it out if you are watching this video now because it ends this weekend. Now’s the time to finally buy the resident evil 4 remake because baby you can save $4 on it. Seriously though it rarely goes on sale and 4 dollars is 4 dollars but it doesn’t matter because its good.

This week Vive went corpo with its business version of the lightweight vive flow. In this new incarnation the flow gets an optional $59 remote that acts as a virtual laser pointer. Wonder if it can distract a cat inside vrchat… anyways if your business needs a tethered vr media viewer you can grab a biz flow for $500. 

Switching over to some AR news Ukranian president Volodymiyr Zelensky recorded an official presidential address that you can watch in 3D on your desk.  The address was recorded by volumetric video capture company evercoast in kyiv to help grow communication between ukraine and the tech community to help it rebuild their digital infrastructure. At the end of it evercoast then donated its equipment to the ukrainian government. If you want to see Zelensky’s address in your room you can use this QR code here to watch.

And finally your metaverse wallet is here. Zuckerberg posted on his facebook page wow thats meta, oh gah I’m collapsing in on myself. The Zuck bucks introduced meta pay which will be replacing facebook pay and it will let you securely manage your identity, what you own and how you pay in the metaverse. With it in the future you’ll be able to buy digital clothing, art, videos music, virtual events and more. Mark later states that Ideally, you should be able to sign into any metaverse experience and everything you've bought should be right there. There's a long way to get there, but this kind of interoperability will deliver much better experiences for people and larger opportunities for creators. My question is what if I want a meta purse or satchel, or clutch? I guess I can buy those later in the meta mall…

Well that’s it, come back next friday for another VR round up and if you don’t well I’ll just become a nullbody then. Bye!

This is the Mod mic wireless from antlion. And if I can be honest at the top here it kinda blew me away. This modular mic you guessed it basically turns any device into a high quality broadcast headset. As you can see here I’ve attached it to my quest to be used for streaming and recording my voice while I’m inside the headset. 

The magic to the modmic is its Neodymium N45 strength magnets that let you easily swap this mic from your questicles to your favorite pair of over the ear headphones to use for voice chat while flatscreen gaming.

To attach the mod mic, grab the included alcohol strip and first clean the surface of your desired device, then pull out one of the two magnetic clasps found in the case.  Now remove the protective layer on the back side to reveal the 3M sticky and then with the microphone attached press and hold them both in position for one minute as to solidify their bond to your device. Antlion does suggest to leave them attached at least an hour before your first use.

The mod mic connects to your computer wirelessly with its usb dongle that uses aptx technology to transmit a full 16bit, 48khz high quality audio signal with a 20hz to 20khz frequency response range for all you audio nerds out there. To make this even more impressive it has a nearly imperceivable 34 milseconds of latency which is 5 times faster than most bluetooth devices. So its more than just a bluetooth receiver. The one caveat here is that the dongle will need to be in line of sight of your microphone but they included a usb extension cable and an adhesive cable anchor so you don’t have to use up your front ports or make a mess on your desk. 

Oh and by the way I’m using the mic to record the audio for this entire video. Are you impressed? Let me know in the comments. And while were here lets do a quick comparison of… my rode studio mic that I usually use for these unextended ubiquitous videos… the quickly quivering quest microphone that is onboard the headset… and now back to the marvelous mod mic wireless.

You may have noticed the little switch near the wind screened mic capsule… that switch swaps between an omni directional mode which gives you a wider frequency response range if you have a quieter more suitable audio environment. But If you need a little background noise reduction you can swap over to the crispier uni-directional mode that focuses the sound on whats just in front of the mic. Personally I’m a fan of the dixie chicks so I like it wide open and omni. Yeahhh.

Speaking of needing to mute, you can tap the side button for a one touch mute which is then reflected in a red light visible on both the mic and the usb dongle so you can see when you are or aren’t muted. 

Unlike some wireless mics you are still able to use it while its charging via the included usb to microusb cable. I will say this does force you to place the mic on the right side of whatever device you put it on so if you do need to charge it, the cable hangs straight down rather than the awkward cable hang over. I’m usually a left side mic guy but the right side is starting to grow on me. It will take about 12 hours of play time before needing a charge.

Lastly you can use the modmic on Windows, Mac, Linux, and the Playstation 4 and 5. No bueno for xbox unfortunately.

You can add the mod mic wirless to your VR streaming arsenal for $130 and I’ve put a link to it in the description below. Like I said at the top I was thoroughly impressed with the audio quality and the ability to swap so seamlessly between my quest for vr streams and then my headphones for regular gaming.

If you have any questions let me know and I’ll answer them in the comments below and of course I’ll catch you in the next quickie!

The team at Meta’s Reality Labs pulled back the curtain and unveiled some of their research work today in the form of some working prototypes and future designs to explain what they hope to achieve with VR in the next few years.

During the 30 minute conversation between Zuckerberg and Reality labs chief scientist Michael Abrash we learned about the 4 main problems meta is trying to solve to pass what they call the visual turing test or basically making VR look the same as our actual reality.

The first and probably the most important problem of course is resolution. The meta team is looking to reach 60 pixels per degree to try and closely match the human field of view which Mark stated would take more than 8k resolution to reach a retinal resolution in a headset. Meta currently has achieved a 55 pixel per degree display which is 2.5 times higher than on the quest 2. They showed this off in the VR prototype named butterscotch where you would be able to see the fine print on an opthamologists eye chart. To make this work Abrash did say the team created a hybrid lens and had to shrink the fov to about half of the Quest 2. But he said after trying it on it was hard to go back to regular VR because it was so sharp..

Next up is focal length. Because our eyes change shape and flex for focusing and looking around, when this is paired with a solid immovable lens things can become uncomfortable quickly. So on top of needing the retinal display resolution you need a depth of focus that can also hit that 60 pixels per degree number at all distances for near and far rendered images. Since currently this doesn’t exist meta worked to achieve this with varifocal technology that moves the lenses dynamically using eye tracking. This was built in the concept design iterations of half dome that has been progressing since 2017. 

Coupled with the focal length challenges is then fixing optical distortion. This is now being done in software and mark says it needs to be dynamic rather than static through software. To research this reality labs built a distortion simulator with 3D tv technology so they test out new lens designs without actually building all new headsets which can take months. This tech again relies on eye tracking to only render what the user is focusing on rather than the whole scene which is necessary to cut down on the processing power cost and subsequently the heat that is produced from the device to be safe for your face.

Lastly let's get our nit on. Meta really wants to push HDR in VR headsets to try and match the dynamic range and light we see in real life. Right now we get around 100 nits for a VR headset while the desired nits for a tv is around 10,000. To research this challenge Reality labs made another prototype called starburst that put a super bright lamp behind the lcd panels. I personally just love those noctua fans on the top. Mark touted the prototype to be the first HDR VR system that they know of in existence which is pretty cool and said obviously its wildly impractical in this first generation of its design but its has been invaluable in learning a bout HDRl in vr.

All of these paths and challenges have led to one fully fleshed out design that you may have actually seen on this channel before. Combining everything they have learned to create visual realism and pass the visual turing test Meta has created holocake 2. We’ve seen Andrew bosworth in a photo with the headset on before. The design is the lightest and thinnest headset Meta has ever created and Mark stated it can run any existing PCVR title. The team at reality labs removed the need for thick and heavy pancake lenses by not sending light through a lens, but it sends light through a holograph of a lens. Which as he explains holographs are recordings of what happens when light hits something. So basically the lenses inside the holocake are much thinner and flatter holographic models of the standard heavy lenses we see today Kind of like what we saw from Nvidia a few months ago.. They then combine this with polarized reflection to reduce the effective distance between the display and eye for a more efficient use of light.

But here’s the bad news. Which I feel like in this interview Zuck is the dreamer and Mike was the cautious yet optimistic Dad coming in with reality. In its current state Holocake 2 requires specialized lasers to give it the proper light source it needs to be a usable headset. The lasers that it uses in testing currently aren't available in consumer products nor at the cost, performance and size that is needed for this headset to be a consumer ready stand alone product. But he did have this to say…. “The jury is still out”

Lastly to end the video Mike shared the latest headset design Meta is working on to try and combine all of that research from the last 7 years entitled Mirror Lake. This is what a complete next gen display system could look like. So this design combines the advanced eye tracking, varifocal tech, and holographic lenses to make everything thin and flat. It also plans to have prescription correction remove the need for glasses attachments. But again I’ll let daddy mike give the warning.

So meta has given us a great and transparent look at what they have been working on for the past few years and the plans for the future. It all looks very exciting. What year do you think we will see a headset with holographic lenses? Or will we see one at all? Let me know down below and I’ll catch you in the next quickie. Sorry this one wasn’t exactly quick…