Trying to get some fucking SLEEP from getting up that one morning. My internal sleep clock is fucked; getting only three hours. 😞 Headset came in the mail close to 9 in the morning. Mother let me know. Got up and picked up the light package, placing it on top of the boxes.. and immediately going back to bed. I’ll deal with it at my normal time, no more of this!
But I couldn’t get back to sleep, no matter how hard I tried. Plus I was thinking of something I did that I felt annoyed Wolves. I have wrote down what happened in the Google Doc (link in the General blog).
Did fix that issue as noon came. Got breakfast down me, still working on that thing mentioned in the doc. Finally finished an hour later.
Now, to open up the box and get out the new headset. In the back of my mind of reading the various comments about the Odyssey+ (how some have reported it looked used to them), it came out brand new for me. Really like the new controllers too– they feel great in my hands. Feel like they have more grip.
The headset itself, there is no swivel connecting the halo to the goggles. There’s a
bar connecting the two, specifically set for a majority of people’s heads. This is great.
The built-in Oculus-like headphones, feel very comfortable to the touch. Test fitting the headset after figuring out where the headband adjustment knob was, I saw some light leaking around the nose area (but not as bad as what I had to deal with before).
Uninstalled MR Portal, just to make sure this would be as clean as possible. Plugging in the cables, I didn’t see a popup from the Microsoft Store telling me to install the software.
Didn’t know you were actually supposed to search for ‘Mixed Reality Portal’ to find the drivers. Would assume it would be under ‘Windows Mixed Reality’… it’s not for some dumb reason.
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Got the drivers, and this time a second window popped up for the Odyssey+ itself. Setup is a lot quicker than the Lenovo Explorer, plus turning on the controllers, auto-pairs them. You don’t have to hold down a painful to the thumb tiny button.
So it went past the controller setup process. ..Further than my other headset did. Somewhat of a good sign, but I’m still not convinced.
It then tried to force on this ‘HMD Odyssey Home’. Four reviews on this, all 1 star. Something about unskippable ads, annoying notifications, and overall bad design. Thankfully the main screen that I was used to (MR Portal), had a Next button to skip past this.
Setting up the boundary… was a pain. The cord is somewhat shorter than the Lenovo Explorer’s, which will not allow me to get a full boundary of my room. But I worked with what I could, and thankfully it accepted my crudely-drawn boundary. Learned you need to keep the headset facing the same axis as the center point, for an accurate boundary.
This is what I was able to do;
The circle on the right is when I couldn’t move the headset any further into my room, and moved it closer to the mini fridge and dresser, where I slowly moved it back to my computer and completed the task.
The straight but slanted line, was trying to get the headset around my waist. Couldn’t put it over my head as the cable isn’t that long.
Okay, so it got this far. This is further than I’ve ever gotten since the issues with Rec Room. Very, very slowly starting to feel confident here. Went into the world of MR
Portal, struggling to get the controller’s wrist straps connected to my arms. Did the
tutorial, not one hiccup. Went into the main room.. then the screen froze for 4 seconds and unfroze (didn’t do it since then). That was a bit unnerving, as my old headset did the same thing.
Noticed how empty the world was.. very empty. No ads or anything for games I could play. But I moved around, smiling I was back in VR again, now feeling pretty confident those issues were definitely in the old headset.
Not sure what even caused them in the first place. Could had been me running over the cable with my chair at just the right angle, who knows. Or if the Lenovo Explorer was such a cheap headset, it was destined to fail.
Installed the Windows MR for SteamVR drivers (and SteamVR itself), and tried out VRChat. Only a few hiccups here and there, but I believe them to be VRChat’s memory leaks (and overall bad coding)– but I was too busy screaming “I CAN MOVE MY ARMS AGAIN!!!” to really care.
Joined some friends, to see if this headset can handle that. The only time I saw and felt a hiccup is if someone changes their avatar or joins. This is perfectly normal to see, even happens on the most beefy of computers– it’s just how bad VRChat’s code is, when you can’t even leave a mirror open when 15+ people join the world. Though that’s just a sign of an un-optimized world.
Played for about two or so hours, and not a single time did I feel any instability with the headset. Had to get off in order to write this (and a few other things).
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Very happy with my purchase. The built-in earphones are great, so is the mic. They feel very comfortable on my ears. Though I said that before with on-ear headphones, and the very next day I felt moderate to major discomfort.
At least this time, I’m not having to pay $80 for pair of headphones (and wait a week for them to get here)– not when that pair of headphones is already on my head while I listen to Chillhop radio on Youtube. 🙂
I give this thing an 8.5 out of 10. Sure I can’t remove the headphones, but the sound quality is very good. The mic is also really good– has background noise cancelling capabilities, and people hear me perfectly. The headset itself feels very pleasant to use.
When idle, there’s a flashing green light where the back sensor is. Assume it’s a constant
self-check, and flashing green means “a-OK”.