After it’s recent appearance at a the Hollywood Swag Bag gifting suite, I received an awesome pair of Merge Virtual Reality goggles. When I received the product, the packaging in and of itself was impressive complete with crisp colors and a snippet of the endless possibilities that you can encounter while using this virtual reality set up. Just so we are clear though, this is not a set up filled with electrical pieces. This set up is strictly a headpiece in which you insert your smartphone. It is similar to the Google cardboard set up except that it is more comfortable and is clearly made to be higher quality.

After just a couple minutes of reading instructions and accessing the Merge website, I was able to download games and videos to use on my set up. The first thing I wanted to do was test how it would be watching the video and the video experience that I chose was “The Walk”. This virtual reality experience allows you to experience walking the tight rope between buildings as it is narrated by the actual person on the rope. Luckily, the whole experience is safe as long as you don’t attempt to walk around your room while wearing the VR set. Yeah, I may have found myself attempting to walk around the room thus stubbing my toe a few times on various furniture. It was a cool experience and one I shared with my husband who got to take a walk on the tight rope as well.

After trying out the videos, which also included a rollercoaster, I went ahead and moved on to games. Although it was cool to watch the rollercoaster video, it just wasn’t the same as feeling the wind in your face and the twists, turns, and drops of an actual rollercoaster. The first game that I tried out was Age of Diamonds.  This game required a lot of moving your head so if you are the kind of person who gets dizzy fairly easy, then this game is not really for you. It is a little fast paced, but fun when you get the hang of it.  Most of the other games that I could play revolved around using your head as the controller. Someone who suffers from vertigo or conditions similar to vertigo will likely not find this type of game play as entertaining as others.

These VR goggles are lightweight and easy to use. They are comfortable and caused no pain to my neck during or after use. The lenses must be adjusted to your eyes, but that is an easy thing to do since there are toggles on the top of the goggles that allow adjustments to each individual lens. The phone fits snuggly inside the slot and I wasn’t to worried about what would happen if the goggles came off because the phone was so well protected. There wasn’t any need to worry about them falling off though, as the straps were well secured and I made all of the strap adjustments necessary to keep the set on my head.

The box states that the goggles are not for children under the age of 13. That makes a lot of sense to me. The only issue I had with it was that the website shows children clearly under the age of 13 using the goggles. Maybe take the age as a suggestion? I chose to take the suggestion as you are required to adjust the lenses and my 5 year old isn’t quite able to do that. I just wanted to ensure that I wouldn’t do anything to compromise her eye sight, but that doesn’t mean it would have damaged her eyes. Purely just a precaution, but my daughter would have loved playing with this. Who knows? Maybe they will come out with a more child friendly pair in the future. All in all, these were a lot of fun to use and experiment with. If you are looking for a virtual reality headset to use with your phone and don’t want to sacrifice your phone or your comfort, these are a pretty nice pair to have. It works well with most smartphones and made for a comfortable experience, both in playing games and watching videos. Write up review by Elizabeth Boaz.

Video review by @SteveSievers