PinchVR

While there are many mobile case type HMDs on the market, few have been as clever or out-of-the-box as the original Google Cardboard. The PinchVR definitely comes close to the sheer audacity of the original cardboard concept.

This was another crowdfunded project that originally ran on Indiegogo, with successful funding on January 23, 2015.

The idea is to have an HMD case that’s completely printable and can fold up to fit inside an envelope. This can then be mailed to the recipient who assembles it on the other end and inserts their smartphone to use it.

The design of the Pinch makes it compatible with anything created using the Cardboard SDK, but it has a unique system that uses the phone’s camera to track your hands, which hold special markers.

The PinchVR shipped to early backers in November of 2016, although this represented a significant delay.  

During development, the company claims that they produced 52 prototypes of the HMD and a further 120 prototypes of the controllers. The machine vision technology that the controllers rely on were especially laborious.

The team wrote more than 10 000 lines of code in C# and almost 20 000 lines of code just for the machine vision software. Quite a lot of effort for what’s basically a smarter Google Cardboard.

The final product is a clever assembly of plastic pieces with integrated hinges which “self-pops” to form the HMD.

Now that the company has shipped out to its backers, it seems that they will be partnering with other businesses to market and spread the PinchVR, but whether it will ever sold directly to the public remains to be seen.