Skip to footer

New Vortex VRTX VR goggles cost just $100, sorta

Vortex's VRTX goggles use a LG G3 phone to pull off cheap virtual reality.

|
Tom's Guide
If you own a LG G3, the VRTX 1 is only $100.
  • By Sam Rutherford Tom's Guide

It's time to add another name to the growing list of companies looking to push the boundaries of virtual reality. Unveiled at PAX Prime in Seattle, Vortex VR's VRTX I headset uses the display from the LG G3 to create a standalone virtual reality experience.

The VRTX I is essentially a head-mounted system that relies on the user to supply their own display, in this case an LG G3. The mount is custom printed by 3D Systems, the same company working with Google to produce its Project Ara modular smart phone. Vortex selected the LG G3 due to its 2560 x 1440-pixels HD+ display. This is reportedly in hopes of reducing motion sickness and the screen door effect that can be caused by lower-resolution displays.

For those lucky enough to already own an LG G3, the price of entry will be significantly lower as the VRTX I is priced at just $100 versus $350 for the second development kit from Oculus VR. This combination also features a higher resolution than the latest from Oculus VR as Oculus uses a 1920 x 1080-pixel screen from a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 as the centerpiece of its headset.

To power the stand-alone virtual reality experience, Vortex has partnered with GameFace Labs -- a company already familiar with virtual reality having showed off its own headset earlier this year -- to leverage the hardware inside the LG G3.

With the $100 VRTX I still tagged as a developer preview, consumers continue to wait for the first retail-ready virtual reality experience. Large companies like Samsung, Sony and Oculus are all working on VR systems. So time is of the essence for Vortex, if it hopes to beat the tech giants to market.

  • Best Smartphones on the Market Now
  • Smartwatch Buying Guide 2014
  • Why Apple's iWatch Already Beats Android Wear

    • You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
    Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
    What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
    editor@csmonitor.com
    Subscribe
    Mark Sappenfield
    Editor

    Dear Reader,

    About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

    “Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

    If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

    But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

    The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

    We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

    If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

    Subscribe to insightful journalism

    QR Code to New Vortex VRTX VR goggles cost just $100, sorta
    Read this article in
    https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/Tech/2014/0902/New-Vortex-VRTX-VR-goggles-cost-just-100-sorta
    QR Code to Subscription page
    Start your subscription today
    https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe