All about the Archos VR Glasses headset

Summary

• About the company Archos
• What is virtual reality?
• What is an Archos VR Glasses?
• The Archos company has bet on the price for its VR headset
• How does Archos VR Glasses work?
• Features of the Archos VR Glasses
• What can connected glasses like Archos VR Glasses be used for?
• The rise of the smartphone in virtual reality

About the company Archos

A pioneer in the audio / video player market and now professional smartphones and tablets, this brand French has continuously revolutionized the consumer electronics market for over 20 years. This company was created by Henri Crohas in 1988.

Since its creation, the brand has continued to expand its range of products. Today, the company offers various android connected objects and equipment, as well as a complete range for its OEM partners. The year 2000 was marked by the launch of the Jukebox 6000, an MP3 player with hard drive. In 2008, it launched the first generation of connected tablets. A year later, it unveiled the first Android tablet. In 2013, it launched its first range of smartphones with the Platinum series. She launched her virtual reality headset at the end of 2014. Being a large firm established in France, it has offices in the United States, in various European countries and in Asia.

What is virtual reality?

To better understand how the Archos Vr Glasses works, we must first understand the concept of virtual reality. It corresponds to an interactive and immersive, sound and visual computer simulation of a concrete or entirely chimerical universe. Using a specific interface, a person can thus dive into this artificial world. Clearly, when she puts on her glasses or connected headset, she can completely ignore the place where she is, in other words, she is virtually elsewhere. Until a few years ago, this phenomenon was reserved for military simulations and industry. Recently, he began to reach a wider audience, especially those who are in the universe of geeks. And in the very near future, it will be implemented in our everyday life, just like the PC or the smartphone.

According to Sophic Capital, the virtual reality market is valued at $ 7 billion by 2018. And the Gartner firm claimed that by 2018 again, the sale of objects relating to this concept would reach more than 25 million units. Virtual worlds will thus become completely “mainstream”. This year 2016 is also a major turning point in the popularization of virtual reality, many companies offering popular products and services today are using virtual reality to promote them. It is clear that in 2 or 3 years, virtual reality will have infiltrated different areas of our everyday life.

In any case, this is the wish of manufacturers like Archos, who are going all out in the world of connected objects to find sources of growth.

What is an Archos VR Glasses?

Those who have only seen this type of equipment in photos often call it a simply futuristic device. In appearance, it is, but not only, since what it offers is beyond the imaginable. Indeed, to fully understand the interest of a virtual reality headset, you just have to try one right away to understand its dimension. It promises users to be placed in another universe full of new sensations. However, contrary to popular belief, the virtual reality headset is not necessarily synonymous with video games. This contains hundreds of different applications. It allows for example to watch a movie, to visit a museum or to taste the thrills offered by roller coasters without necessarily going there. In short, the Archos VR allows you to take full advantage of an interior distraction, immersive by definition.

But the Archos VR Glasses remains a small player in the virtual reality market, headsets like the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, the Samsung Gear VR or the OSVR, offer much more advanced virtual reality experiences. Moreover, we must admit that the Archos VR has been almost forgotten in the last 6 months and this headset no longer seems to be able to hold the race in the VR market.

The Archos company has bet on the price for its VR headset

Not being a pioneer in this area, Archos has chosen low-cost to penetrate this new market. Indeed, with less than 30 euros, anyone can get a VR Glasses headset. As a reminder, you will have to pay 100 euros and 120 euros, respectively to get the Samsung Gear VR and Carl Zeiss VR One. As for the Google Glass, it was sold for 1 dollars before tax when it was released and is currently withdrawn from sales. Its launch was not really a success despite its precariousness and its price too expensive for the general public. Precisely, if at the beginning it was intended for developers and soon after other users were able to use it, its price has not changed. Archos then struck hard with its very affordable Archos VR Glasses at 30 €. In addition, it did not use the same launching technique as the web giant Google. The latter chose to only sell his product at Google offices, which did not really motivate buyers. For Archos, the sale of Archos VR Glasses was done through the usual resellers of all its connected products. Today it can no longer be found at the Archos brand, but at certain small retailers on the net.

This choice of low-cost did not necessarily bear fruit, the general public probably preferring to invest a little more for a qualitatively more attractive product. What's more, the marketing monsters that are the Oculus and the Vive, to name a few, have completely drowned the small marketing ambitions of the Archos among the general public.

How does Archos VR Glasses work?

To enjoy an Archos VR Glasses, do not forget that we need a smartphone. Indeed, it is this one that does all the work. The brand particularly recommends a quad-core smartphone with a 5-inch screen with four or more cores, Full HD, which will make it easier for the device to reach 1920 x 1080 pixels. She also recommends the use of motion sensors such as an accelerometer and a gyroscope to optimize the experience. The Archos headset easily fits smartphones between 5 and 5,7 inches and a little worse for others. The mobile must be slipped into a housing and be locked gently with two flaps.

The smartphone screen is split in two. It takes care of the projection of the images on each lens, which will be recomposed. To obtain correctly centered images, the smartphone must be positioned correctly. Otherwise, the user will have a shifted image on each eye.

Not embedding any techno, Archos VR Glasses is of course compatible with Windows Phone, Android or iOS.

Features of the Archos VR Glasses

Adopting a wireless design, the structure of this headset is made of plastic, hence its lightness. Taking the same shape as the Google Cardboard headset, it is sort of a manufactured version of it. Unlike the Samsung Gear VR which has built-in motion sensors, the Archos model is rather passive.

The straps of the Archos VR Glasses are adjustable. They allow them to receive any smartphone from 4,7 to 6 inches (up to 16,5 x 8,5 cm). As it is the mobile that displays the content in relief and reflects the actions, the display quality then depends on it. At a minimum, you can use a 720p definition, but 1080p or higher is recommended. The lenses of this helmet are also made of synthetic or acrylic resin but they are very resistant. They are 30 mm in diameter. They are adjustable and can therefore easily adapt to any type of body type.

To avoid pain when wearing this helmet, the part sticking to the user's face is designed with a rubber contour. The jaws, whose role is to keep the mobile on the glasses, are also equipped with foam to prevent the mobile from sliding during use. However, the use of smartphones equipped with a screen protector is recommended..

Admittedly, the brand does not offer a dedicated application particularly for these glasses. However, they are compatible with several virtual reality applications. Users can browse the internet and download it for free from Google Play, of which more than a hundred are compatible with the helmet. It is then possible to adapt the helmet with applications like Google Cardboard to test experiments with Street View, Youtube, Maps and even Google Earth. In addition, with the update of the brand's Video Player, users will benefit from stereoscopic 3D videos on their mobiles, creating the illusion of being in a 3D cinema.

It is also possible to adapt Archos VR Glasses with the Archos bluetooth gamepad. Finally, Archos VR Glasses is not intended to be "over-worn" over usual glasses given its size and the bulk it can cause. On the other hand, if the user already has sight problems and in particular poor 3D vision, the Archos VR may not provide him with any fun.

What can connected glasses like Archos VR Glasses be used for?

In 2016, we are preparing to witness the massive arrival of various connected products including glasses and helmets. But it remains to be seen what exactly can they be used for?

According to the arguments of the promoters and those who have already tried, they will be useful in various fields.

In the world of sports : they will allow athletes and sportspeople to monitor their performance, speed, heart rate and route just like connected bracelets. But, glasses have one more advantage, since they will allow you to take photos without having to handle your smartphone. Not to mention the games to simulate a sport but to practice physical activity or even audiovisual sports programming.

In the domain of health : they can help in several ways. From the point of view of psychotherapy, the idea is that the virtual makes it possible to appeal to a context that will arouse emotions. The psychologist can use these emotions for all kinds of purposes, such as controlling fears in anxiety disorders, for example. For patients who suffer from addictions, they can also involve learning to manage the desire to use. Therapists can also use virtual reality glasses to cause discomfort in patients who need to work on their body image (especially anorexics). In the case of neuropsychology, the virtual can participate in setting up a more realistic situation, which gives a better idea of ​​the patient's reality in certain parts of the assessment.

In Dubai, where tests have been carried out, glasses are even used to facilitate the consultation of various information during the intervention thanks to the integrated screen. They also allow you to take pictures very quickly. In the United States, a company provides an application that optimizes aiming with firearms. In France, experiments are being carried out in the field of culture. The youARhere company has developed an application that provides information, which is actually enlarged when you observe works in a museum.

This is only the emerged part of the fields of application, virtual reality can be and is used in many other fields, let us mention in particular real estate, tourism, the military or even television, events of all kinds and even music.

The rise of the smartphone in virtual reality

Whatever one thinks of Archos VR Glasses, it has the merit of making virtual reality available to everyone. Indeed, this company understood this concept well and set the bar high by adopting a very low price compared to competitors. Thus, contrary to popular belief, virtual reality will be open to the general public and not to a tiny group of development studio with big means or private individual in the same case. However, the arrival of this new gadget will affect several areas and various sectors will be impacted. The business will therefore be done as much on its ecosystem and its uses as on the helmet itself. For virtual reality to be discovered by the general public and its uses to be made on a daily basis, it must be accessible both financially and in the types of “devices” available. It is then obvious that access to the smartphone is the effective solution to make all this operational. Google's Cardboard got it right by asserting that the smartphone will become a currency in which virtual reality will be able to flourish. In recent months we have seen the emergence of new virtual reality applications on mobile devices.

But the Archos remains a product that is no longer in the game, for several months there has been almost no news, implying that the product may not have the follow-up it needs to maintain itself in the virtual reality market. Certainly, its price is attractive and is a good way to test this new technology inexpensively, but a user looking for a more ambitious product will quickly turn to other much more powerful helmets.