eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
I have a problem: I get bored really easily, which means I’m always with something that will keep me entertained. Typically that is my Amazon Fire HD tablet, which is my go-to entertainment device. But I’m also a huge supporter of Indiegogo, where I often find new and amazing products that are cutting edge. My new favorite from that site is the Goovis Cinego Personal Cinema.
Until this product came along, the closest thing I’d had to a good entertainment experience on a headset was a pair of high-end (they cost $20,000) video glasses from Sony (I doubt they sold many of these, given the price) which were targeted at the training/medical market. I took those glasses to a LAN party, and once the gamers saw them, I was lucky to leave with the glasses in hand, because the folks loved them so much.
For those who don’t know: A LAN party is a gathering of people with computers or compatible game consoles, where a local area network connection is established between the devices using a router or switch, primarily for the purpose of playing multiplayer video games together.
My best experience was having a flight attendant ask if I was with the CIA or some other covert organization because they looked incredible. But at $20K, I couldn’t afford them, and Sony wouldn’t let me keep them, so I was lost.
Where I was most lost was when having my teeth cleaned–which I find to be the most incredibly boring regular event I attend because my only visual entertainment is a ceiling fan that often doesn’t even spin. But the last two visits I watched “Firefly” (one of my favorite movies), and I actually asked if I could stay longer and finish the movie (they said no, thus the movie spanned two visits).
Let me walk you through why this high-definition video headset is the best I’ve found.
Goovis Cinego
One of the things that makes a head-mounted solution difficult for me is that my eyes have vastly different focal points. I wasn’t born this way; I just didn’t want to wear glasses and had one eye surgically altered (given pain killers often don’t work for me, that was excessively memorable), making most solutions like this a non-starter. But the Cinego has individual eye adjustments, so you can dial in not only the focal point for both eyes but adjust for the distance between them. The result is a solution you can wear for hours.
Most of the headsets I’ve deployed use a phone as the source of content, and this makes setting the things up pretty easy. However, if you get a call, given your eyes are covered, the result can be pretty comical and really mess up your viewing experience. Same thing with email alerts and texts, which is why I’m not a fan of these smartphone-connected solutions.
The Cinego has its own controller running Android, and unless you load communications apps on it, your viewing won’t be disturbed by some spammer who wants your attention. The interface is a touch pad and buttons for cursor direction and scrolling, which is organized so you can find the buttons without seeing them (which is handy, given there are a couple screens covering your eyes).
Fitting is with a single strap that uses Velcro, but once you have it set there is no reason to adjust it again, unless you lend your headset to someone else. The product is light enough so that you can wear it for hours and not feel the weight, and battery life is almost two movies. But it uses a typical USB micro socket for charging, so a regular (not USB-C or Apple) smartphone charger will charge it back up.
The product comes in two configurations: the $799 G2 and the $899 Pro, which adds Blu-ray support, so it will take a feed from your Blu-ray player. You can find portable Blu-ray players for under $75, but I haven’t found one yet I like, so I think the G2 is just fine for most folks.
The G2 will take an HDMI feed so it will connect to regular DVD plyers, drone video feeds, and anything else but Blu-Ray (which has extra security) if you want to use it as a video viewer. Oh, and the headset has a 3D switch so you can easily view 3D movies (if you can find someone that still streams them).
The experience is just like having a huge big screen TV on your head the twin 2K OLED displays provide an incredibly sharp image rivaling some of the best TVs and, in its case, it is about the size of a good pair of noise cancelling over the ear headphones.
Wrapping Up:
I’ve been in the hunt for a good head mounted display ever since I had to send back a $20K set of amazing headphones from Sony. While not a cheap date (it was less expensive on Indiegogo) the Goovis Cinego. With the Cinego I found my perfect head mounted movie/TV solution and this product has become one of my favorite products of all time. The product is well made, which is good, because support is somewhat uncertain. Fortunately, most won’t need that support still making the Goovis G2 Cinego display headset the best portable movie viewing experience I’ve yet seen.
Rob Enderle is a principal at Enderle Group. He is an award-winning analyst and a longtime contributor to QuinStreet publications and Pund-IT.