I decided to create my own HMD as a compromise since the Oculus CV1 is still too far away and the DK2 too expensive for me when there's a better device to come soon™.
Since it's my first experience with HMDs (not with DIY-projects, though), I took a pretty standard approach, this means picking hardware that someone has already used successfully. All in all it's definitely not meant to be the fanciest HMD alive, but rather to get my feet wet with VR and to cover the waiting time until the CV1.
At the moment the core components are (comment and suggestions always welcome!):
- 7" 1280x800 IPS Display (N070ICG-LD1) + HDMI/VGA controller Board (VS-TY2662-V1)
- UltraOptix 7x aspheric 1.5" lenses
- 6 DoF positional tracking via DIY infrared headtracker and PS3 Eye Camera (software: FTnoIR+PointTracker)
Since this variant of tracking is so cheap to build, my whole project cost clocks in at pretty much exactly 150€ at the moment although I'm not able to buy the panel + lenses right now, that will have to wait a few weeks, I fear.
While it would be nice to stay below the 150€ mark, I also know well enough that I will invest more if I see the opportunity of a cost-effective upgrade/modification
Updates will follow on an irregular basis