Google Cardboard Dates Augmented Reality : Issues, Challenges and Future Opportunities

The Google’s frugal Cardboard solution for immersive Virtual Reality (VR) experiences has come a long way in the VR market. The Google Cardboard VR applications will support us in the fields such as education, virtual tourism, entertainment, gaming, design etc. Recently, Qualcomm’s Vuforia SDK has introduced support for developing mixed reality applications for Google Cardboard which can combine Virtual and Augmented Reality (AR) to develop exciting and immersive experiences. In this work, we present a comprehensive review of Google Cardboard for AR and also highlight its technical and subjective limitations by conducting a feasibility study through the inspection of a Desktop computer use-case. Additionally, we recommend the future avenues for the Google Cardboard in AR. This work also serves as a guide for Android/iOS developers as there are no published scholarly articles or well documented studies exclusively on Google Cardboard with both user and developer’s experience captured at one place.