Galaxy S7 Daydream / android.hardware.sensor.hifi_sensors support - Samsung Galaxy S7 Guides, News, & Discussion

Galaxy S7 Daydream / android.hardware.sensor.hifi_sensors support - Samsung Galaxy S7 Guides, News, & Discussion

I have checked the android.hardware.sensor.hifi_sensors support on the Galaxy S7 with the latest official Android 7 beta and it's there:
FeatureInfo{10031f9 android.hardware.sensor.hifi_sensors v=0 fl=0x0}
So it looks like as the hardware could support Daydream but it is also possible that this flag is reported incorrectly due to the beta status of Android 7.
I have already installed the Daydream APKs and the Google VR services from apkmirror and the app crashes when I try to start the VR mode.
Code:
final PackageManager packageManager = this.getPackageManager();
final FeatureInfo[] featuresList = packageManager.getSystemAvailableFeatures();
for(FeatureInfo featureInfo: featuresList){
if(featureInfo.name != null && featureInfo.name.equals("android.hardware.sensor.hifi_sensors"));
{
Log.d(this.getClass().getSimpleName(),featureInfo.toString());
}
}

YouTube Vr reports incompatible device:
Could somebody remove this check? In the background it looks like it is working.

How is daydream different from gear vr?
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takerhbk said:
How is daydream different from gear vr?
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GearVR has extra sensors on the visor, Daydream uses only the sensors available on the phone.

I got it working after modifiying the /system/etc/permissions/handheld_core_hardware.xml as stated in this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/5hno6u/got_daydream_to_work_on_my_5x_might_work_on_other/
Some stuff is working, but the AAA+ games like Need for Speed either get stuck at the loading screen or immediately crash.

I just need Bluetooth joypad to work. Not got another phone to use as controller.

takerhbk said:
How is daydream different from gear vr?
Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I was surprisingly underwhelmed by the daydream view. It performs in ever metric right between the cardboard and the Gear VR.
The daydream drifts constantly the gear VR doesn't at all.
The daydream's FOV is a strict right angle while the Gear VR is 96 - 100°depending on the phone.
The daydream can't keep up with rapid head turns and you notice obvious black edges creeping inward toward your turn, the gear VR has flawless time warping no matter how rapidly you turn back and forth. I suspect the design of the daydream i.e. It's missing 3rd strap is meant to discourage you from turning your head too fast lest it fly off.
The day dream has lower resolution on the regular pixel but the same resolution with more SDE on the XL.
There is a ton of light bleed under the daydream view unit itself whereas the Gear VR is completely flush against your face.
The daydream doesn't have any adjustable lenses so if it doesn't work for you there's nothing you can do. The gear be has fully adjustable lenses and is designed to fit glasses. With the lenses being adjustable however you don't even need your glasses.
Although the daydream api support 3D binaural sound the pixel can't handle it and just collapses everything to stereo. Things are either to your sides or sound like they're in front of you even while behind you. There's no impression of anything above or below. Distant objects are played at a lower volume, closet at a high volume. On the Gear VR, it uses Samsung pro audio to create a completely convincing 3 dimensional sound field where you can not only hear all around you, where things behind you actually sound like they are, but above and below you too. It also processes doppler effect filtering so that objects far from you sound farther and not just softer.
The pixel also gets skin blistering hot after 30 minutes and will overheat not much longer after that. The Gear VR doesn't get phones nearly as hot and especially with the S7 with its vapor cooling system you can play through an entire charge and it'll only get a little above room temperature.
The daydream also crashes or fails to load at all pretty often as you can see from reviews. In my test the pixel would randomly reboot between changing titles at least once every 4 or times.
On the plus side the controller is fun and does add more possibilities. But unfortunately the controller and the headset both drift all the time and often in opposite directions. You have to press and hold the home button to re-center it a lot more often than is comfortable. If it wasn't for the controller the daydream would have no chance at all. It feels much more like a tech demo and isn't anywhere nearly as refined as the gear vr.
The gear VR also annihilates it in quality and quantity in terms of content.
It may seem like I'm being really hard on the daydream but for something as pricey as the gear vr it's really disappointing and annoying. If you try it you'll see exactly what I mean.
If I was coming from cardboard I'd be impressed but it's practically unplayable coming from the gear vr.
If anything it just demonstrates what a marvel of a piece of tech the gear vr really is, while even being 3 years older and performing on older hardware.

Related

Gear VR content using cardboard?

I recently bought a nice google cardboard cross oculus style chinese knock off. The lenses and fit are quite good for the low price point. Far better than the comical cardboard diy.
The only problem with buying this instead of the gear vr (not available locally) is that there is no content. So probably a dumb questiom but How hard would it be to rip the microsd card content from the grar vr and port it to cardboard? I know theres only a few apps and its almost all demos.. as i already have a note 4, it seems as if it shouldnt be too difficult to get some of these vr experiences working even if its with more limited sensors.
Possible? Pipe dream?

Your best bet is to ask twistedumbrella as he has the vr and is developing for it

You can get the Gear VR installer here but the problem is that the software is trying to detect a Gear VR and won't do much after installation.

Galaxy S7 and Gear VR experience

So Facebook (Oculus) has come up big time supporting Samsung. Let's discuss everything related to VR hardware and S7 related experience here.
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Free VR headset for all S7 and S7 edge pre-orders in US and Europe.
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Well VR on 1440p just sucks. Samsung could have brought out 4k, that would have been a huge improvement, but on 1440p you can even see subpixels. Hopefully the s7 edge+ will be 4k, then VR will start to become interesting I think.

I think that's the limitation of the screen and SOC. I don't think that even exynos 8890 or SD820 could handle 4K with reasonable frame rates.
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omeryounos said:
I think that's the limitation of the screen and SOC. I don't think that even exynos 8890 or SD820 could handle 4K with reasonable frame rates.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sony's Z5 has 4k and that's based on an 810, so the above soc's should easily be able to handle 4k. I'm really not sure why nobody seems to bring out 4k screens this year. It would take VR to a new level. Yes, at 4k ,you'd still see pixels, but it would be a huge upgrade and a LOT better VR experience. This whole '1st gen' VR just sucks. I guess we'll have to wait to 2017 though to see a better VR gen appear, maybe the oculus 2 then.
It kinda pisses me off though. I mean who cares about a slightly better camera, a slightly faster cpu. That's not the stuff that matters anymore. My Nexus 6p shoots perfect pictures and everything sails perfectly smooth. But VR just still sucks and everyone that has tried the current VR generation at least has seen the potential that this has. This is going to be huge. But not just this year because the manufacturers dont care about it. I dont get that at all .... If the S7 would have had 4k, I would have bought it without thinking twice ! But now, why the hell should I buy a phone that's only slightly better/faster than what I have now ? (one could even argue that the Nexus 6p is better, I'm pretty sure the interface at least is smoother). So without 4k, no reason to upgrade at all. [/end of rant]

Toss3 said:
Your Nexus 6P takes perfect pictures? Pretty sure it doesn't in low light situations.
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Click to collapse
What makes you say that ? The nexus 6p was optimized for low light (just like the s7 is now), and was until the s7 THE best phone for low light photos: http://imgur.com/a/dfgLs
Sure the S7 probably is slightly better but I dont care, I'm not a photo purist. My nexus 6p shoots very nice low light photo's and that's all I care about.
but I'm sure Oculus were the ones that didn't want the Gear VR to provide a better experience than what you get on the rift
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that's what I figure too. It must have been a deal between samsung and Oculus/facebook. Zuckerberg knew that if the S7 would feature 4k, it would KILL the oculus and that's why they made a deal. Gear VR is a joint project between them anyway and Zuckerberg also spoke during the Samsung S7 presentation so they're good 'friends' nowadays anyway. Really really too bad. The joke would be huge if Apple decided to feature the iphone 7 with 4k and go from nowhere to the leading position in the VR race It would become my first iphone then

gekkehenkie11 said:
Sony's Z5 has 4k and that's based on an 810, so the above soc's should easily be able to handle 4k. I'm really not sure why nobody seems to bring out 4k screens this year. It would take VR to a new level. Yes, at 4k ,you'd still see pixels, but it would be a huge upgrade and a LOT better VR experience. This whole '1st gen' VR just sucks. I guess we'll have to wait to 2017 though to see a better VR gen appear, maybe the oculus 2 then.
It kinda pisses me off though. I mean who cares about a slightly better camera, a slightly faster cpu. That's not the stuff that matters anymore. My Nexus 6p shoots perfect pictures and everything sails perfectly smooth. But VR just still sucks and everyone that has tried the current VR generation at least has seen the potential that this has. This is going to be huge. But not just this year because the manufacturers dont care about it. I dont get that at all .... If the S7 would have had 4k, I would have bought it without thinking twice ! But now, why the hell should I buy a phone that's only slightly better/faster than what I have now ? (one could even argue that the Nexus 6p is better, I'm pretty sure the interface at least is smoother). So without 4k, no reason to upgrade at all. [/end of rant]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the Z5 uses an IPS LCD display, which have very bad response times for VR. UHD amoled displays are just too expensive at this time.
You would need a 8K panel to not see the sub pixels because oculus use magnifying lenses (which is an ugly hack) to artificially increase the FOV.
By comparison, if you use a HMZ-T3 HMD, even through it uses 2 720p micro OLED panels (which btw is a much better solution than one 1440p OLED panel, though more expensive), you don't see any sub pixels even at 720p resolution, so no screen door effect, unlike the Gear VR and Oculus Rift
Envoyé de mon SM-N910F en utilisant Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 02:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:23 PM ----------
gekkehenkie11 said:
What makes you say that ? The nexus 6p was optimized for low light (just like the s7 is now), and was until the s7 THE best phone for low light photos: http://imgur.com/a/dfgLs
Sure the S7 probably is slightly better but I dont care, I'm not a photo purist. My nexus 6p shoots very nice low light photo's and that's all I care about.
Yeah that's what I figure too. It must have been a deal between samsung and Oculus/facebook. Zuckerberg knew that if the S7 would feature 4k, it would KILL the oculus and that's why they made a deal. Gear VR is a joint project between them anyway and Zuckerberg also spoke during the Samsung S7 presentation so they're good 'friends' nowadays anyway. Really really too bad. The joke would be huge if Apple decided to feature the iphone 7 with 4k and go from nowhere to the leading position in the VR race It would become my first iphone then
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
More like, the VR is still a niche market and regular users are totally content with 1440p 5.5" panels on their phones, there aren't enough VR users out there for Samsung to justify the cost and 2160p vs 1440p on a cell phone panel is more of a gimmick than anything else to anyone but VR users.
Finally, VR games are GPU intensive, it costs a lot of power (read battery) and dissipates a lot of heat (which you need to constantly keep under a certain temperature) to drive a VR game or app at 2160p (or higher).
A 2160p panel would make much more sense on the actual RIFT device that can be driven by proper GPU architectures (Pascal or Polaris coming in 2016), that said, Oculus have to do with what they are given, and Samsung isn't producing small sized 4K OLED panels, in fact there isn't enough demand on the Rift to justify the production of a custom panel for it, not to mention it's already overpriced enough as it is (€750 in Europe, which is a joke...Good luck targeting mainstream consumers with prices like that)

mathieulh said:
You would need a 8K panel to not see the sub pixels because oculus use magnifying lenses (which is an ugly hack) to artificially increase the FOV.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes and you'd need 8k *per eye* to stop seeing pixels at all, I know. But still, 4k would be a huge upgrade over 1440p. If I play a 1080p VR movie or a 1440p, that's a huge difference already in the whole expierence (1080p just really sucks, 1440p is just bearable in my opinion). The coming years we'll see every year a better and better experience up till the point when we've reached that 8k per eye in combo with low response rate. It's a gradual process. But that's why I'm a bit pissed that another year seems to be thrown away now nobody is implementing 4k this year. I just cant wait man VR is going to be huge, everybody who tried gear VR knows that.

mathieulh said:
More like, the VR is still a niche market and regular users are totally content with 1440p 5.5" panels on their phones, there aren't enough VR users out there for Samsung to justify the cost and 2160p vs 1440p on a cell phone panel is more of a gimmick than anything else to anyone but VR users
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a chicken-egg dilemma. Samsung now seems to have chosen the strategy to first get more people into VR (the whole s7 presentation was built up around VR and they're giving away free gear vr's now with pre-orders). But not offering a good experience, by offering 1440p, most likely wont attract huge interest. My collegue for example was really excited about VR coming but when he tried the current gen his excitement was totally gone. And I must say my own experience was quite similar. In my opinion the current VR gen is just a promise of better days to come: you can see what it can do but just at very low quality.

gekkehenkie11 said:
It's a chicken-egg dilemma. Samsung now seems to have chosen the strategy to first get more people into VR (the whole s7 presentation was built up around VR and they're giving away free gear vr's now with pre-orders). But not offering a good experience, by offering 1440p, most likely wont attract huge interest. My collegue for example was really excited about VR coming but when he tried the current gen his excitement was totally gone. And I must say my own experience was quite similar. In my opinion the current VR gen is just a promise of better days to come: you can see what it can do but just at very low quality.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try the Sony HMZ series and you will see what a good HMD is like (sub pixels can't be seen at all, you feel like in front of a 130" screen), that said, no VR on those since you only have a 45° FOV and no head tracking. At least they don't compromise the FOV for image distortion and screen door effects though.

Well, maybe 2016 will be a lost year in the VR world, but things WILL get interesting the coming years, if samsung can get indeed 11k displays for phones ready by 2018: http://www.mobilechoiceuk.com/News/...a-11k-screen-samsungs-on-it.aspx#.Vhd8iDYVjIU
I think (a modification to) Sony's Z5 approach is going to be the right way. in non-VR usage these phones should render 1440p but when connected to a VR headset, the higher resolutions should become enabled. I think that's going to be the way of the future.

gekkehenkie11 said:
This whole '1st gen' VR just sucks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For 100 USD/EUR no, it doesn't suck at all.
gekkehenkie11 said:
Well, maybe 2016 will be a lost year in the VR world
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In will only be lost for you, everybody else will enjoy the technology.
I suppose you never watched TV until Full HD became available. Well...your loss
Your remarks remind me of the fox and sour grapes. VR is here and you have very limited options with your Huawei phone.

How much can the VR sell for?

1440p/2 is just about bearable for VR, Samsung are not looking to directly compete with Oculus Rift, this entry level VR so the experience reflects that.

Will Samsung give Gear VR or Gear VR2 with pre-orders? Do anyone know?

Cst79 said:
For 100 USD/EUR no, it doesn't suck at all.
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Click to collapse
So you call seeing sub-pixels and lag that makes you nauseous actually a good experience ? Good for you then.
VR is here and you have very limited options with your Huawei phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, you never heard of google cardboard ? I have this one http://www.homido.com/ (which actually isnt even cardboard cause it doesnt feature the cardboard button) but there are so many different (cardboard based) VR goggles out there, anyone with a smartphone can have VR and has a zillion options, just check out Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=vr+goggles
But it doesnt matter which headset you're using, they all just s*ck cause 1440p is the max that's currently out there. Sony's Z5 is the only phone with a 4k display out there but those engineers at Sony made it so you cant use 4k for VR, not sure what they were thinking there ...

Shocky2 said:
1440p/2 is just about bearable for VR, Samsung are not looking to directly compete with Oculus Rift, this entry level VR so the experience reflects that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agreed that it's about bearable. Obviously when they designed the Gear VR together with Oculus, they agreed not to compete with them and dont bring 4k to the consumer just yet. It's business I get that. I just wish they hadnt made such a deal would have pushed full power forwards. Cause now Samsung doesnt do it, I dont see nobody else doing it neither, at least not in 2016 ...

Shocky2 said:
1440p/2 is just about bearable for VR, Samsung are not looking to directly compete with Oculus Rift, this entry level VR so the experience reflects that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
gekkehenkie11 said:
Agreed that it's about bearable. Obviously when they designed the Gear VR together with Oculus, they agreed not to compete with them and dont bring 4k to the consumer just yet. It's business I get that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oculus Rift resolution per eye: 1200x1080.
Gear VR resolution per eye: 1440x1280.
Surprise...Gear VR has better resolution than the best VR solution available.

Cst79 said:
Oculus Rift resolution per eye: 1200x1080.
Gear VR resolution per eye: 1440x1280.
Surprise...Gear VR has better resolution than the best VR solution available.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We will see how that turns out.

Fiit VR or BoboVR Z3?

Hi
I have the Google Cardboard 2.0 for some time now and I really enjoyed watching VR movies (adult) but it's really not comfy at the nose level, I added some foam but still too sharp.
So I want to try a cheap Chinese solution and I have found these 2 under 20$ models: FiiT VR and BoboVR Z3
I know there is a newer version of BoboVR but it's literally the double in price, so between these 2 models which one is better in terms of comfort and 3D effect?

I just got a FiitVR 2N, it's very comfortable, but I can't get it working with Cardboard. I'm thinking it might have to do with the fact that I'm on Cyanogenmod, though.

Fiit VR

Anyone coming from HTC 10 or M9?

The U 11 is not as good as I expected, specially for the audio part as it doesn't have a 3.5mm jack and the bundled adapter is perhaps very slightly louder than S8 but the sound quality is said to be better on the S8. Also the official U 11 is postponed till July in my country, only the grey market one is available right now and it costs a leg, +130$ compared to the S8 (grey market too)
So I am tempted again by the S8 which has undoubtedly the best screen in 2017, so here my questions for people coming from the HTC 10 or M9, and even actual S8 users:
-Are you afraid of screen burn-in? I usually use my phone's screen as Car dashboard to control music in my car so it can stay 1 hour with the screen activated, the HTCs LCD won't do any burn-in but what about Amoled of the S8?
-How's music on the earphone jack using your own iems? Are too far from HTC 10 and M9 audio power?
-How big are the chances to get a red tint screen nowadays?
-I always used my 10 in a Fiit VR headset for watching VR Movies, how's the S8 screen in a Fiit VR or BoboVR Z4?
-And of course do you regret getting the S8 instead of waiting for the U 11?

I'm coming from the htc 10. I don't have answers to a lot of your questions unfortunately but I can give you my thoughts. Using the supplied akg earbuds from the s8, music from the s8 sounds very good but on the 10 I feel its still better. not a difference that makes me wish i had my 10 back tho. as for burn in this is my first amoled screen and I use my phone as a display while driving and run Waze for my 45 min drive to work and then when I head home. so far no issues with the screen being on the whole drive and I don't anticipate there being any. yes, the maps change while driving but the nav and status bar are always on and I don't see issues yet. Red tint I do not notice and even if I did I think it's fixable with the display settings. never used vr so can't comment on that.
I do not regret getting this over the u11. I prefer a phone that I can easily use one handed. the 10 was about at the limits of what I could use one handed and the s8 is better in this area where the u11 is bigger than the 10 and is comparable to the pixel xl which I felt was way too big imo. I appreciate the headphone jack on the s8 despite people saying it's going away eventually, I normally use bt earbuds but there are times I want to listen to something quickly and just pull out wired buds instead of having to pair my bt ones.
if you're coming from the 10 the things you will notice are that the 10 was still a great phone compared to the s8 and the s8 doesn't feel much faster than the 10. there will be a slight learning curve with Samsung's ui which you will adjust to but you will be annoyed by how the 10 seemed to do things better. new features with the s8 will make up for that and the screen will look gorgeous coming from the 10 but you will see that the 10 still had a great screen as well. volume buttons on the opposite side compared to the 10 are annoying and still annoy me when using the camera which I'll explain below. the fingerprint sensor on the s8 will drive you mad after using the 10 front fps which imo fps on the front is my preference. both are very fast, assuming you get placement on the s8 correct the first time, this helps with a case on it. Battery life is better on the s8 most likely due to the cpu but not by much. I got over 4 hours sot with the 10 and get over 5 now with the 28 with similar usage. Camera on the s8 is superior to the 10 but again not by much, I still took fantastic shots with the 10. with the 10 I used volume button to snap pics and it was right there when shooting in landscape mode, with the s8 I have to use the on screen button with my right hand which I find results in blurry pics sometimes.
initially, i had buyers remorse going from the 10 to the s8 but after adjusting to Samsung's ui I'm happy with it. that being said, I don't think the upgrade from the 10 to the s8 is worth it due to it being only a slightly better phone. If you're looking for an upgrade and want to be comparable to the 10 I would consider the one plus 5 coming soon, tho last I saw they dont have a headphone jack either. if you have any other questions feel free to ask me.

Thanks for the details!
I think I will go toward the U 11, yesterday someone told me that VR movies on google cardboard compatible headsets (which I have) will get black bars on the screen making the viewable screen just 5.1'' due to the weird 18/9 ratio, the U 11 is 5.5'' but still 16/9 so it will use 100% of the screen

I came from the HTC 10. No i don't regret it.
1. I am not afraid of burn in, I will isle back to T-Mobile under manufacturer warranty and get a replacement with no deductable for the defect.
2. This was one of my biggest fears, before buying the S8 i had done as much research as possible and most people seemed to be happy with S8 audio. After getting the phone quality of audio was pretty good but not loud enough for me. So another user posted to free Adapt sound apk with package disabler from the play store and download Fx equalizer and that made a big difference. Then i used the htc earbuds i got from HTC as a gift and the combo is great, music i robust enough, and now loud enough. So no root audio for s8 based on these mods worked great for me.
3. Don't know anything about red tint on the phone so not wired about it, of it happens i will use solution from number 1 again.
4. I haven't used VR so can't comment on that part.
??

Thanks!
I think I am gonna take an S8 then.
HTC keeps postponing the release here and the price will be more than an S8 + a used GearVR.
Sunshine doesn't look like it will be available for the U11 so root = no warranty
I love HTC but I have to be more practical this time and take the S8

Your thoughts on the new Razer smartphone with 120 fps LCD 1440p display for VR use

Hey everyone
There is a new phone called Razer which claims 120hz refresh rate on its LCD display released a month ago now. This feels like an exciting new phone to get as a VR fan. I am assuming being LCD, it has an RGB type matrix with 3 sub-pixels making this the most superior display for reducing SDE (Side Door Effect) than any other display including Rift/Vive/PSVR apart from Xperia Z5 and XZ Premium phones (4k RGB displays) and some LG phones with 1440p LCD displays.
So potentially, google cardboard VR games and apps could be more immersive than on any other phone because of the combination of very high refresh rate for smooth motion and reducing motion blur/sickness and high sub-pixel density for reducing SDE. That excites me. I already enjoy google VR apps with hardly any SDE on my Sony Xperia Z5 Premium 4k RGb display phone but there is noticeable motion blur when turning my head quickly. I also have a PSVR that 1080p RGB OLED display with higher sub pixel density than GearVR/Rift/Vive, but what makes PSVR smash mobile VR out of the park is the 120hz refresh rate on its display. I play all sorts of fast action games in it and never suffer motion sickness...its incredible.
So for Razer phone to have 120hz refresh rate is bloody exciting and could take us one step closer to that of the PSVR 120hz or Vive/Occulus 90hz experiences. Of course what would still be lacking is room space position tracking unless you use the Trinus VR with PC and cameras to play Steam VR games which is a tricky thing to fully achieve.
But reality check. Apps and games have to be specifically developed to support 120hz. Most games and apps today are coded to max at 60fps. But that's still cool. Even if apps lock at 60hz, which most OLED phones and Samsung phones with Gear VR achieves, the Razor will still have a better motion and display experience due to the higher sub-pixel density than OLED phones. At least in theory.
So, if any of you have bought the Razer, do please let us know your thoughts and if you have have tested VR games and apps on it. Do current VR games/apps look and play better with this phone? Or is it a crushing disappointment for VR?

Also interesting in hearing about the experience from anybody that has bought one.

Database Users

welcome