I Am Cardboard, makers of a variety of Google Cardboard viewers, recently delivered their new DSCVR Headset (pronounced “Discover”) after a recent, successful Kickstarter campaign.
Since delivering the 3,000 headsets promised to backers just before Christmas, the Hong Kong-based company of 10 have sold approximately another 20,000 of the DSCVR model on Amazon and at their own website according to CEO Joseph Li.
Ironically, the DSCVR viewer for Google Cardboard apps is made out of plastic, and therein lies one of its strengths, literally. It won’t get mashed up being carried around in your bag all day.

An additional advantage is that the back end where the smartphone attaches is not enclosed like some other cardboard viewers. Instead of holding the phone in place with cardboard flaps and velcro, the DSCVR uses a wide rubber band and therefore can fit many different phone types without needing to remove the phone’s protective case to make it fit.
It worked pretty well with my iPhone 6 Plus (thanks to Google opening up the platform to iOS last May).
On the downside, you can’t really bend it around slightly to fit your face the way you can with a viewer actually made out of cardboard. But overall, i’d say the strength of the plastic outweighs that. It’s not like cardboard on your face is super comfortable either.
If I were going to pay 15 or 20 bucks for a headset made out of cardboard, I would probably perfer to pay an extra 10 bucks for this one and have it last longer. I Am Cardboard is hoping you think the same thing.
