We were recently sent the yay3D Viewer for our Nexus 7 tablet to review by the creator himself Scott .
The first thing that struck us was the sturdy design of the viewer and we were pleasantly surprised at how well it fitted both of our tablets. We tested it on our Nexus 7 tablet as well as our 7 inch brand android tablet. We found it harder however to clip onto the android tablet but this was designed with the thinner Nexus 7 tablet in mind. Once clipped onto the tablet however it holds it very well with no slippage at all.
It is made of sturdy plastic which is 3D printed and gives a rough textured feel to the user.
The lenses themselves are easily adjustable meaning anyone , either child or adult, can adjust the IPD depending on the user. I found this a little fiddly at first but after a few tries and once you know where your own sweet spot is you can adjust these very easily to obtain optimal results.
Once I started searching for software to use I discovered that at present there is not an awful lot available. One thing I found very noticeable was that you need to touch the screen to get the app working which leads to smudges on the screen that to the naked eye aren't noticeable but once you put the viewer to your eyes and the various lighter colours of the application emerge, any smudges that you have caused become very noticeable and can become distracting.
We tried various 3D films using the viewer, the most memorable being the Thriller 3D movie which can be found on YouTube. This was an ideal one to try as it only last 5.30minutes which in my opinion is the longest that you would be able to maintain the holding stance comfortably to view a short film. There are various 3D films available to view but I can't see how you could watch a whole 3D film for 90 minutes comfortably using the viewer. There is a stand that comes with it but this would involve you sitting still and finding a surface that is at eye level while sitting ,to place the viewer on and maintaining that position for the duration of a movie.
I did notice reflections creeping into the lenses from either sunlight breaking into the room or if I was in a room with a lamp on. Ideally you would need to use this in a darker room.
Other than movie there are some virtual reality applications available on the Google store for your android tablet. Any software that works with the Durovis Dive will also work on your android tablet.
The two stand out demos we tried were firstly Dive City Coaster which is an android version of the Parrot Coaster which is available on the Oculus Rift. It obviously isn't the same quality graphics wise but is still a great demo to try out. The screen resolution on the Nexus 7 is a lot higher than what is on the Oculus Rift Dev Kit 1 screen so the picture image itself is a lot crisper.
The second we tried was Dive Deep which I thought was the better of the two for the immersive feeling that it gives you. The underwater creatures are all very realistic and you do get quite a start when they approach you from the side or swim right across your path. This one was also the favourite of the children who spent more time on this demo than any of the others that we showed them.
When we asked our children to try this out and to try some of the demos and they really enjoyed it. They didn't seem to notice anything that I have already mentioned such as smudges or reflections because they were so focused on what was going on, on screen. I had found the fact that I still had peripheral vision as this is not an enclosed unit to be distracting but to them it made it a more enjoyable experience as they could still see that I was in the room with them as opposed to the Oculus Rift when they are totally enclosed and feel like they are "alone" when the headset is worn.
Overall we were very impressed with the design, ease of use and also the 3D effect that this viewer created. For the price point of $49 it's something that we would recommend others to purchase if you already have a 7 inch tablet and don't want to be giving your children access to your expensive head mounted display. The yay3d viewer will keep them entertained.
To purchase your own viewer click here….