Google I/O attendees strolled out of yesterday’s keynote with a simple cardboard kit that turns an Android phone into a virtual reality headset. It’s part of an experimental Google service called Cardboard designed to create VR experiences inexpensively, and with hardware people already have. Even so, there’s some work needed to make the headset, which — as the name implies — is a mix of cardboard origami, magnets, close-up lenses, and velcro. Google’s offered up instructions on how to procure all this on your own, but isn’t selling the kit it was giving out at I/O. Now another company has stepped in, offering the same thing at what it says is half the price.
