When it comes to being able to enjoy virtual reality anywhere, Gear VR delivers a great experience. Mostly. However, he is plagued by problems with the slow and inexorable disappearance of the screen. This problem can be exacerbated by a number of things, but no matter why it happens, it’s never fun. We have some tips to help you cut down on how often this happens and how to deal with it when it does.
My Gear VR keeps drifting to the side
One of the most persistent and aggravating issues on the Gear VR is the continued return of screen drift. You may have noticed this, especially when you sit and watch a movie. Slowly but surely, your screen starts to move left or right. While this exacerbates enough when you’re looking around and interacting with the game, it can become much more annoying when you’re sitting still and trying to watch a movie.
Screen shifting seems to happen mostly in apps or games, and much less frequently when you’re on the Oculus home screen. If you tend to play while sitting on a swivel chair, you may not even notice it, especially since you will be moving on the swivel chair. This is most noticeable when it happens when you are trying to watch a movie or series. Depending on the degree of drift, it may not even be noticeable until you blink and realize that your screen has lifted up a bit.
Even though this is a fairly common problem that has been around for several years, there is no single solution that can be fixed. There are some things that can help and we have outlined them here for you.
Disabling Bluetooth headphones or third-party controllers
When shopping for awesome Gear VR accessories, not all of them are as good as they seem. In some cases, 3rd party Bluetooth controllers and Bluetooth headphones caused an increase in reports of drift in the experience. It’s not particularly common, but it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.
If your experience has been consistent and after pairing your new headphones or gamepad you start seeing screen shifting, you may be dealing with an accessory causing the issue. While it’s disappointing, the new Gear VR controller shouldn’t be causing this issue. It’s also worth noting that connected headphones are recommended for Gear VR anyway due to audio latency issues.
Check battery level
the culprit of your problem. If drift issues have just started to occur or are particularly noticeable, you need to take your phone out of the headset and see how much power you have left.
If your battery is running low below 20% then it is definitely a good choice to put it on charge for a while. If you are particularly hot, you can also take a break and see if that helps.
Reorient your screen
If the worst gets worse and you start noticing screen drift, then you’ll want to quickly and easily reorient your screen. Luckily, this can be achieved with a few button presses. If you double-click the back button, the Oculus menu will open. From here, simply click «Reorient Screen» and your display should fix itself.
This is obviously not a perfect solution, and depending on how bad drifting problems are, this may only help for a few minutes at a time. This, however, ensures that you can fix things in the moment and see what happens.
