Review: Homido Virtual Reality Headset

The Homido Virtual Reality Headset for Smartphones, is a plastic shell which you can slot your phone into in order to use 3D media like games and movies. In short the Homido headset is great for what it is – our Senior 3D reviewer, Declan P., simply said “I love it!” – but there is a problem with the lack and type of support surrounding it.

Basically the Homido is a slickly and nicely produced Google Cardboard. It places your smartphone neatly in front of your eyes for viewing immersive content. At that level this is a great device. It is well made, caters for different eyes, and is comfortable.

There are, however, some limitations. The surrounding instructions and support are only OK. For example, when you are setting up the headset it has a confusing set of instructions telling you to insert your phone into the headset and then download the Homido app using the phone that is now impossible to use. More significantly, the headset is advertised as being used for 3D games, pictures and videos. Games require input to work, and that’s an issue when your only input device for the phone is its screen. If you buy this for playing games, I recommend that you also buy a bluetooth controller.

Finally, the other issue with the headset is the Homido app itself. It says that it has 360 degree video and pictures, 3D video, and games. However, many of these videos and pictures weren’t 3D, they were just videos and pictures that you could look around in. So the app didn’t have the right resources to make something like the Homido work as well as it could.

All that said, overall the Homido device is one of the best VR-headsets I have seen as it is cheap and can be used by anyone with a phone. And the better your phone, the better the experience will be.  Final thoughts from our reviewer:

My favourite part of the Homido experience was lying down and staring at an underwater documentary for an hour. It felt like I was really underwater and looking at real fish,to the point that it was disorienting that you didn’t feel anything when the fish just passed through your arm.

We tried out the Homido Virtual Reality Headset thanks to the lovely folk at MobileFun.