Never get frustrated by weak signals again with the $440 eero Pro WiFi system

The Thrifter team has a new deal on the eero Pro WiFi system, a great way to make sure your house is covered in the strongest possible Wi-Fi signals!

This eero Pro WiFi system comes with three eeros and is down to $439.99 on Amazon. This is eero’s newest package, having only been released in June and has never dropped below $500 on Amazon in that time. A couple other retailers have matched, or come close to matching, this price including B&H and Newegg.

The eero is a mesh networking system, which seem to be all the rage these days. It’s a great system if you live in a large house, especially when your router is inevitably in the worst possible place and you can’t get coverage everywhere. Just think about all the times you’ve tried to use your Wi-Fi in the garage or the kitchen or the bathroom and shook your phone in frustration. You might need one of these.

This package comes with three of the 2nd generation eeros. Each one connects to an Ethernet port, so you need to have Ethernet wiring throughout your home, or maybe your small business, to use this properly. If you can use these, the benefits are worth it. The 2nd gen eeros have tri-band Wi-Fi, which adds a third 5GHz radio to your system. That makes your Wi-Fi network stronger and faster, and with three devices running throughout your home you’ll probably never moan about your crappy Wi-Fi ever again.

If you don’t have three Ethernet outlets to plug into, you can get this eero package that comes with one Ethernet-powered eero and two eero Beacons for $356. Beacons only need a regular plug outlet, not an Ethernet port, to be powered. They aren’t as strong, of course, but they may be more convenient.

Never set up a mesh networking system like this? Android Central breaks down how easy the eero is to use and what you’ll need to do it.

Once you’ve got your Wi-Fi setup to your satisfaction, it’s time to add a few voice-controlled Echos for just $75 to the network. Use that stronger Wi-Fi to turn your home into a Smart home.

See at Amazon

More from Thrifter:

• How to save money using Target’s Cartwheel service
• How to avoid baggage fees

For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!

The Best Music Videos to Watch in VR

If music be the food of love, 360 degrees of music is a banquet.

While researching this article we had to wade through some appalling music videos to find some that are worthy of your time. A lot of the 360 videos don’t really use the power of VR to the fullest. We have combed the internet and found some of the best, ones that showcase what VR can bring to different genres.

These music videos may not be the best songs or be your type of music but all of them show some positive action towards making good VR content.

Read more at VRHeads

Michael Kors Grayson smartwatch review: Fashionably late to excellence

Michael Kors is back for round (Android Wear) 2.0.

For a time, it seemed like every phone manufacturer was hot on Android Wear, but those days are long behind us. While we still have big names like LG and Huawei building watches for the masses, it’s the fashion brands like Fossil, Tag Heuer, Movado — even Louis Vuitton — that have picked up the mantle. Oh, and Michael Kors, which is far more associated with high-end bags, shoes and analog watches than gadgets.

Last year, I took a look at a promising but flawed Dylan Access smartwatch from Michael Kors, which shared dozens of problems with Android Wear watches launched in the previous two years. But Michael Kors is working with a more mature market now, and has access to better hardware. To wit, the Grayson and Sofie watches that were pre-announced during Baselworld in March and are now shipping starting at $350.

I want to point out some massive improvements to both of these watches: they no longer have the dreaded flat tire that became the butt of a million jokes on the Moto 360 series; and the displays themselves are of considerably higher quality. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, they run Android Wear 2.0, which pairs really nicely with the rotating crown on the Grayson’s right side (it sits in the middle of two programmable buttons). Given that I have yet to use the LG Watch Sport, this is my first interaction with a crown on Android Wear, and I am quite impressed: it makes navigating the UI considerably easier and more fluid. And while the Grayson’s crown isn’t as well-calibrated as that of the Apple Watch (my only other source of comparison at this point), it’s pretty damn good.

Both Grayson and Sofie also have nice-looking round AMOLED displays, Sofie’s a 1.19-inch 390×390 panel with beautiful colors and excellent viewing angles. Grayson’s is even better, measuring at 1.39 inches and 454×454 pixels, one of the highest-resolution on the market today. They’re paired with 300mAh and 370mAh batteries as well, and feature the standard loadout of Android Wear specs, including a Snapdragon Wear 2100 chip, 4GB of storage, 512MB of RAM and IP68 water resistance. And yes, they come with ambient light sensors this year.

There’s a great smartwatch underneath the fashion marketing.

The charging mechanism is still clumsy, but the magnets have been strengthened to prevent the attachment from ignominiously slipping off during the night (which is why I stopped wearing the Dylan — I woke up to a dead watch almost every morning). In my week or so using the Grayson, I’ve had no problems with its magnetic charging, which is a nice surprise.

Both Sofie and Grayson are a part of Michael Kors’ commitment to smartwatches; the former comes in eight color combinations (not to mention a smattering of jewels around the bezel) and a seven strap combinations; the latter in four colors and four strap options. I’ve been using the stainless steel black Grayson with matching black metal strap, and the quality is outstanding, as has been the experience.

But it’s important to talk about who these watches are being marketed to. Android Wear may be old hat to readers of this site, but many people in the fashion world are coming to connected wearables for the first time, and have likely held back due to poor designs and lackluster product quality. Grayson, like its competitors from Fossil, Tag and others, tries to recreate the traditional analog look as much as possible, both with a recognizable chassis design and, of course, watch faces.

To say that the pre-loaded Michael Kors watch faces that arrive on the Grayson are not to my taste would be an understatement. But they’re there for those who want them, and Android Wear 2.0 makes it easy to switch between them effortlessly using a swipe on the screen, or load new ones through the built-in Play Store.

One thing that Michael Kors has improved from a watch face perspective this year, though, is its Access app. The premise is simple: you give the app access to your Instagram or Facebook account and let it download photos to your watch to use as background images. Given my propensity for taking sunset shots, my Instagram feed was the perfect vehicle for showing off Grayson’s beautiful AMOLED display, and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.

Android Wear 2.0 has also been given a bad rap. It’s got its flaws, sure, but I have been happily using it over the past week to receive notifications, check the weather sans phone, and count my steps using Google Fit. Neither Grayson nor Sofie have built-in heart rate sensors, but their accelerometers do the heavy lifting for fitness tracking.

I’m surprised at how much I like the Grayson, and feel it fits nicely into both Michael Kors’ growing line of fashion smartwatches and Android Wear’s move to a more mainstream platform as a whole. There’s nothing remarkable or new here — battery life is still around a day to a day and a half with moderate use, and Android Wear apps are still a dumpster fire — but for $350 you get a nicely designed stainless steel smartwatch with one of the best screens I’ve seen on a wearable to date.

See at Michael Kors

Android Wear

• Everything you need to know about Android Wear 2.0
• LG Watch Sport review
• LG Watch Style review
• These watches will get Android Wear 2.0
• Discuss Android Wear in the forums!

Best Cases for the LG V30

What are the best cases for the LG V30 so far?

The LG V30 is the latest flagship from LG and a really well-designed phone. It’s got waterproofing and wireless charging capablilities, but it’s got glass on both sides, so you’re going to want a case to keep it free from scratches and other damage.

Here are some of the best cases you’ll find for the LG V30. We’ll be sure to update this list as more accessories are released.

• Spigen Rugged Armor Case
• SUPCASE Full-body Rugged Holster Case
• UAG Plasma Series Case
• LK Ultra Slim Thin Case
• Ringke Fusion Case

Spigen Rugged Armor Case

Looking for a sleek case that offers great protection? You want the Spigen Rugged Armor case for your LG V30. Made from TPU material with a matte finish and carbon fiber detailing, this case looks slick and keeps your phone protected without adding much bulk. Wireless charging will still work with this case on, and precise cutouts around the fingerprint scanner and dual-camera setup around back ensure that all the phones functionality is unimpeded.

Spigen’s Rugged Armor case is my go-to choice for any phone I’ve owned, so it comes highly recommended for any new device. If you want to keep your phone protected while keeping it looking sleek and thin — all for just $13.

See at Amazon

SUPCASE Unicorn Beetle PRO Series Case

Some cases claim to be rugged, but few live up to the name quite like SUPCASE. The Unicorn Beetle PRO Series is tough as hell, designed for heavy users and those who love to take their phone into the great outdoors.

Made of a combination of premium TPU and PC materials and includes ports to block dust and debris from getting in — the phone already has IP68 water resistance and dust-proofing, but redundancy is always a good thing. It also comes with a swivelling belt clip and holster, if you’re into that look. You can pre-order yours today for just $18.

See at Amazon

UAG Plasma Series Case

Some cases are simply iconic, and it’s fair to say that the Urban Armor Gear’s Plasma series is one of those.

Part clear case and part rugged protection, UAG never compromises on the construction of its cases— despite the premium materials and heavy-duty design, the case remains feather-light with thoughtful design elements like non-slip rubberized edges so your phone will never slip off a table when you put it down.

It’s passed military-grade drop-test standards, but you probably won’t be dropping it too often thanks to all the textures for your fingertips to cling to. You can get the premium Plasma Series case for a premium price from UAG’s website — yours for $40.

See at Urban Armor Gear

Ringke Fusion Case

The Ringke Fusion case blends rugged design features with a sleek and clear case that lets the LG V30’s design shine through.

This case combines a tough polycarbonate back plate with a soft and shock-absorbing TPU bumper. There are dust caps over the charging port and the headphone, and you can get yours as a crystal clear case, or with rose gold or black accents. This case starts at just $8 on Amazon, so it’s also a great budget case option.

See at Amazon

LK Ultra Slim Thin Case

If you’re planning to get plenty of use out of the LG V30’s wireless charging capabilities but still want to keep things protected with a case, you may want to consider the LK Ultra Slim Thin case.

At only $8, it’s super affordable and available in your choice of classic black, clear, or a purple or mint-green tint. It’s your standard, minimalist thin case, that offers decent protection without adding any bulk to your phone. It’s got an anti-slip finish to it, too, so your phone won’t slide anywhere if you put it down.

See at Amazon

What cases are you eyeing up?

These are our picks, but which cases are you planning to pick up for the LG V30? Let us know in the comments!

LG V30

• LG V30 hands-on!
• Full LG V30 specs
• LG V30 vs. G6 vs. GS8
• The V30 is the first phone to support 600MHz spectrum
• Join our LG V30 forums

Eharmony and Alexa team up to make finding a date that much more weird

I’ve been married for 13 years next week. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to do that in the age of smartphones and dating apps and Instagram and text messages. I am old.

Also: There’s now an Amazon Alexa Skill that ties eharmony to your Amazon account. So you can find more info on potential lifelong partners without even having to pick up your phone, or log into a computer.

Or, as eharmony puts it:

It’s a hands-free way to navigate the dating process, as the eharmony skill for Alexa acts like your own personal matchmaker, introducing you to the selected daily matches eharmony has chosen for you.

Or, as eharmony also puts it: “With the eharmony skill for Alexa, people can focus more on the other elements of a profile by listening to her.”

OK, then.

You can enable the eharmony Skill for Amazon Alexa here.

[custom:amazonalexa]

‘ALEXA, SHOW ME MY MATCHES FROM EHARMONY’

The eharmony skill for Alexa, Reading New Matches, Sharing Messages, and Summarizing Your Daily Activity

September 6, 2017 – Los Angeles, CA – Whether you are lounging at home or getting ready to start the day, eharmony brings a new element of excitement to online dating with a skill for Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)  Alexa. eharmony users will be able to enable the eharmony ‘Skill’ for Alexa, hear their matches and messages by voice and then ask Alexa for more info on dating prospects. It’s a hands-free way to navigate the dating process, as the eharmony skill for Alexa acts like your own personal matchmaker, introducing you to the selected daily matches eharmony has chosen for you.
 
The ability to listen to eharmony matches through Alexa is the latest move by eharmony to make it easier for people to connect with possible matches in a fast paced world.
 
“Alexa provides a unique, human element to eharmony,” said Grant Langston, chief executive officer of eharmony. “The eharmony skill for Alexa advises singles on matches who are compatible and sent messages. The eharmony skill for Alexa also surfaces pertinent information, like location and occupation that some people might gloss over if they are just quickly swiping at attractive pictures. With the eharmony skill for Alexa, people can focus more on the other elements of a profile by listening to her.”
 

How It Works

To get started, first enable the eharmony skill, then link your eharmony account in the Alexa app, and say “Alexa, open eharmony.” From there you can navigate to the sections of eharmony that you’d like to hear about. As the skill reads through the profiles and tells you about your matches, it also sends a photo of a potential love interest to your smartphone. And those with an Echo Show can see their matches photos right there, resulting in a completely hands-free way to experience eharmony.
 
Here are some helpful phrases to use with Alexa.

• To check out your matches, say “Alexa, ask eharmony for my matches.”
• To read your unread messages, say “Alexa, ask eharmony to read my messages.
• To hear who viewed your profile, say “Alexa, ask eharmony who viewed my profile.”

• To get a summary of your account activity, say “Alexa, ask eharmony to give me a summary.”
   
  Alexa also offers an element of fun with witty remarks such as…

• “Oh my, you have a lot of new matches.”

• “Let me tell you about your first match. Ooh la la! She lives 5 miles away!”
• “Oh and there is NAME. What a catch! He seems great.”
• “You have five unread messages, woo hoo!”
• “You are popular today!”

For additional help, visit: http://help-singles.eharmony.com

Epson’s ultra bright projector can hide in plain sight

While we’re starting to get some crazy mixed reality tech using projectors, it’s good to see companies haven’t forgotten about good old-fashioned home cinema. Over the past year, manufacturers have been lining up to show off their little light emitters that pack big features. In June, Optoma unveiled its 4K projector, which at $2,000 is considerably cheaper than its rivals. Even Chinese behemoth Xiaomi is muscling in on the turf, promising a laser projector that uses the same system as movie theatres for less than $1,500. Not to be left behind, industry heavyweight Epson just unveiled its own thoroughbred. The company is touting the new Home Cinema LS100 as an “ultra short-throw” laser display. What that essentially means is you can park it just inches away from a wall, and it will still light it up with a 120-inch, full HD picture.

The LS100 is a seriously bright system that boasts 4,000 lumens of colour and whiteness. Its 2,500,000:1 contrast ratio also results in deep blacks and a vivid palette of colors, apparently. All those elements combined mean you can even binge watch your fave shows in the daytime or with the lights on. Additionally (as it’s a laser projector) you don’t have to swap out a light bulb, with Epson boasting the system can last for 10 years or more. On the back of the little black box you’ll find three HDMI ports, which should be sufficient for all your streaming needs. The LS100 is out this fall, and will set you back $2,999.

There are cheaper short-throw options out there, including alternatives from Optoma and LG that come in below $1,500. But Epson is banking on that brightness to make you shell out that bit extra for its maxed-out home cinema experience.

Source: Epson

London’s V&A museum to put the spotlight on tech and gaming

While the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is home to some of the world’s oldest artworks, the institution also takes time to recognise the impact modern technology has on our culture. It’s already appointed its first-ever Game Designer in Residence and hosted the world’s first 3D-printed weapon, The Liberator, but as part of its 2018 programme, the museum will open two new tech-oriented exhibitions.

The first — The Future Starts Here — takes a critical look at how design is shaping our technological future. When it opens on May 28th, 2018, the exhibition will feature over 100 objects that detail the various ways that emerging technologies could affect our lives in the coming years and how public perception may influence their development. Exhibits include Facebook’s solar-powered unmanned aircraft, Aquila, the Long Now Foundation’s Library of Civilization composed of over a thousand books, as well as specially commissioned pieces from prominent designers and creatives.

Oh, and there’s also a model of Apple’s “Spaceship” campus.

The V&A’s other exhibition, simply titled “Videogames,” opens on September 8th and takes a look at the “complexity of videogames as one of the most important design fields of our time.” It’ll focus on the rise of the gaming industry from the mid-2000s and how the internet and social media have impacted the way videogames are designed, discussed and played. The museum promises an array of immersive experiences, as well as materials from big-name studios that have pioneered modern-day video game design.

Source: The Future Starts Here, Videogames

Hackers are actively targeting US and European power grids

We’ve been talking about the potential of hacker strikes on electric grids for years, and now it looks like the threat is imminent. Symantec reports that a group it calls Dragonfly is targeting energy and power sectors in the US and Europe, with the intention of both learning how these facilities operate as well as eventually gaining control over the systems.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of Dragonfly. Back in 2014, Symantec and other researchers identified the group as responsible for a series of attacks on US and European energy systems that stretched from 2010 to 2014. A joint analysis between the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI in 2016 tied Dragonfly to Russian malicious activity, though Symantec has been careful not to speculate on the origins of the group. Now, it appears the hacker organization is active again in a campaign that Symantec has termed “Dragonfly 2.0.”

This series of attacks began in December 2015 with an email scam sent to people within the energy sector. The group gathered network credentials and were able to install back doors that provided remote access to targets’ computers. Symantec cautions that the 2010–2014 attacks may have been an intelligence-gathering phase. Now, the group could be trying to gain access to energy systems for all-out attacks.

Symantec notes that one of the most troubling aspects of this campaign is the use of screenshots. In several US attacks, hackers were able to capture screen grabs of actual control panels for these energy systems. “That’s exactly what you’d do if you were to attempt sabotage,” Eric Chien, a Symantec security analyst, told Wired. “You’d take these sorts of screenshots to understand what you had to do next, like literally which switch to flip.”

It sounds frightening, to be sure, but now that we’re aware the threat exists and is active, there are measures that can be put in place to thwart Dragonfly 2.0. Symantec’s recommendations include encrypting sensitive data, implementing secure passwords and two-factor authentication and making sure overlapping defensive systems are in place. Even with these measures, though, it’s important to remain vigilant to ensure that the group isn’t able to take control of US and European energy systems.

Via: Wired

Source: Symantec

Williams redesigns the chassis for lighter and stronger EVs

There is frequently a trickle-down from the world of high-end motor racing through to the cars on sale at your local dealership (and refrigerators). Which is why the latest project to emerge from Williams Advanced Engineering is so exciting for the future of EVs. The F1 company is showing off its lightweight electric car chassis that’s designed to make electric rides lighter, safer and greener.

Right now, it’s just a platform onto which other companies could, if they want to, adopt to build their own rides. But it’s packing several innovative features, including fiber-reinforced suspension that is 40 percent lighter than a traditional aluminum wishbone. In addition, the company claims that the highly-automated manufacturing process generates “near zero waste.”

Williams has also worked on a way to make a better exoskeleton for the EV’s battery which should make it safer and more efficient. It makes sense, given that Williams currently designs the battery systems for Formula E and knows what’s required to make them work. In addition, the company works with Jaguar and Aston Martin, boding well that their ideas will be adopted in mainstream cars.

And, fundamentally, electric vehicles are going to need radical departures from the gas-powered orthodoxy to really succeed. It’s one of the reasons that Tesla has seen such success, relative to others, is that it was able to begin with a clean-er slate than those businesses transitioning from existing cars. It’s still early days, but let’s hope that Williams can use this new chassis to pave the way for lots of exciting electric vehicles.

Source: Williams

The surprisingly lackluster rise of VR porn

“It’s like being inside of a womb or a particularly immaculate throat, all gently pulsating, mucus-y pink flesh.”

NSFW Warning: This story may contain links to and descriptions or images of explicit sexual acts.

That was me, in December 2015, recounting my adventure inside Ella Nova’s anus, the true star of Kink.com’s first official virtual-reality sex scene. That encounter, so other-worldly, so beyond anything else I’d ever experienced, served as my virtual-reality aha moment. Just weeks before, I’d been invited to sit in on the filming of the extreme anal, girl-on-girl shoot. When I arrived, Kink, the studio synonymous with online BDSM porn, was booming. For nine years, it occupied San Francisco’s 200,000-square-foot armory building where, at its peak, it produced up to 100 fetish scenes a month.

The upper levels, where the company’s in-house chef served lunch daily, were filled with office spaces where video editors, developers and graphic designers kept the Kink machine running. The staircases, adorned with ornate paintings of women and men in various states of bondage, led to a cavernous, subterranean maze of elaborate porn sets. There was a seedy-hotel suite, a padded psych ward, a speakeasy and even a holodeck where the company stored its vast collection of fuck machines. The labyrinthine underbelly of the armory was a hive of activity. Directors, actors and crew members flitted from set-to-set, filling hours of digital film with explicit acts for Kink’s eager subscribers.

I’d been blown away by my virtual adventure into the orifice of another human being and impressed by my real-life experience inside the Kink mothership, but within months, the novelty had worn off. Yes, Ella Nova’s butt was magnificent; it was also an anomaly. Compared to the endless free clips littered across the internet, VR porn was expensive, limited and hard to find. Due to a lack of direct distribution, multi-gig files had to be downloaded and sideloaded before you could even play them. Add to that software updates, firmware updates and heavy battery drain, and an otherwise quick sprint could turn into an hours-long marathon before the starter pistol had even been fired. It was early days, but I didn’t have the wherewithal to be an early adopter.

Nearly two years later, my Samsung Gear VR was collecting dust, but the VR hype machine was still going strong. In early 2017, analytics firm IDC estimated global spending on AR and VR would reach $14 billion by year’s end and $143 billion by 2020. Back in 2015, Piper Jaffrey predicted VR porn would become a $1 billion industry by 2025, trailing only video games and the NFL in popularity. Considering my early experience and those wild predictions, I wanted to find out if porn really could, as some proposed, help drive a virtual-reality boom.

When I first visited the palace that S&M built, the porn industry was buzzing with the promise of VR. The New York Times had just introduced millions of print subscribers to the medium with free Google Cardboard headsets, and Oculus was getting ready to ship the first consumer Rift. The year before, Facebook purchased Oculus for $2 billion, and investment in VR was about to skyrocket. As excitement around virtual reality mounted, questionable old cliches about porn’s influence on technology resurfaced. Could porn beat gaming at courting the masses in the same way it had with VHS, HD and search? Or would VR be the magic ingredient to bring the porn industry back from the brink?

“Kind of like the internet is for porn, VR is for porn. It just kind of naturally goes together.” — Fivestar, Kink VR

One thing was certain: There was money to be made, and a small group inside Kink saw an opportunity.

“The first time I put a headset on and it was porn that I was watching, it just felt so real,” said Fivestar, then an in-house director at Kink. “It felt like this was the reason VR existed. Kind of like the internet is for porn, VR is for porn. It just kind of naturally goes together.”

Fivestar and Kink’s head of postproduction, Kawai, assembled a small team of tech-savvy employees, petitioned their boss for the necessary equipment and started experimenting in VR. What began as a passion project, as Fivestar puts it, quickly grew into Kink VR, a beta vertical featuring downloadable videos with titles like Daddy’s Fuck Boy, Two Girls One Fucking Machine! and Ella Nova’s Outrageous Anal Adventure.

VR presented new opportunities for an industry vanquished by the financial collapse of the late 2000s and the rise of free tube sites like PornHub. Like the Kink VR team, adult performer Ela Darling (not that other Ella), immediately gravitated toward virtual reality.

“I’ve been an adult performer for almost eight years, so when I try new technology I see it through the lens of pornography,” Darling said. “I ask myself, ‘How can I make porn with this? or ‘How can I watch porn with this?’ With VR, it was really, really obvious that it had the opportunity to revolutionize the adult industry in a really powerful way.”

Soon after Darling started experimenting with VR, she founded VRTube, a virtual reality camming platform that also offered choose-your-own-adventure-style dating sims. The tall, slender blonde with inviting blue-gray eyes, quickly became the face of a new, technologically advanced movement in the porn industry. She appeared in Wired, The Verge and The Guardian. A report on Recode bearing a close-up of Darling in a VR headset asked, “Can virtual reality save the porn business?”

Building on VRTube’s early successes, Ella and her business partner (who did not wish to be identified) struck a deal with Cam4, an existing cam site with global reach. While VR’s impact on porn was still unclear, the “VR Porn Queen” was and still is riding the wave of excitement.

“We’ve got cam studios on three continents,” Darling said. “We’ve got several European countries, South America, and I’ve got independent performers in North America. We’ve basically become the first consistent, reliable VR cam site. There’s no other site that can do the kind of content that we do, which is photo-realistic 3D, 360 at very low bandwidth.”

Other early adopters saw similar successes. Naughty America, a traditional porn studio that’s as all-American as apple pie and Stifler’s mom, went all-in on VR, appearing at tradeshows like CES and E3 in an attempt to take adult VR mainstream. Since it rolled out its first VR scene in July 2015, the studio has doubled production, releasing two new scenes a week in addition to its standard 2D content.

VR is the biggest niche since MILF.

Ian Paul, Naughty America

“VR is the biggest niche since MILF,” Naughty America Chief Information Officer Ian Paul said. “If you want to write it off as just a niche, and it arguably still is a niche, it’s a huge niche. It’s a niche that’s on fire. So it’s a force to be reckoned with, and it needs to be watched very very carefully, because it can easily go from being the biggest niche to the mainstream, to the dominant force in the industry, just like that.”

To hear Darling and Paul talk about it, the business of VR has come a long way since my gastrointestinal odyssey. According to Pornhub, its collection of 2,600-plus VR videos (up from 30 in 2016) pulls in 500,000 views daily. With viewership and production apparently on the up-and-up, I assumed the user experience had kept pace. So I dusted off my Gear VR and returned to the home of my first time: Virtual Real Gay.

I first came across the site the night before my visit to Kink in late 2015. I wanted to get acquainted with the landscape, but at the time the VR porn market was a wasteland for anyone but straight men with very vanilla taste. Virtual Real Gay was a homoerotic oasis in a sea of fake-and-bake double D’s. Sadly, no amount of virtual beefcake could save me from disappointment. The experience was cumbersome, the content was low-quality and the payoff — well, there really wasn’t any.

Two years later — and, I’m sorry to say — not much has changed. As opposed to harnessing the true power of virtual reality, letting viewers experience unknown worlds and undiscovered fetishes, the porn industry has decided to stick to what it knows. Straight men are the dominant force in porn purchasing and as a result, the majority of money is being pumped into producing content with them in mind. Kink, for its part, has created a handful of gay, lesbian and trans videos, and Virtual Real Gay’s catalog now includes 38 titles. That’s better than nothing, but when you consider the user experience and the cost of a monthly subscription, there’s not much incentive for the rest of us to buy in.

But what of the experience? For VR porn to really take off, it has to offer something the free, frictionless world of PornHub can’t. If firmware updates, sideloading and troubleshooting shoddy software turn you on, you’re in luck! For the vast majority of users, however, virtual reality is still little more than a novelty. I recently spent more than an hour trying to load a single video onto my Gear VR. My first attempt, downloading a video directly from Virtual Real Gay to my phone and playing it in the Virtual Real Player (a proprietary beta app), turned into a glitchy kaleidoscope of outsize buttholes, inflated penises and unidentified orange body parts.

My second attempt, sideloading a video and watching on the Oculus player, was a success, but sadly not much more gratifying. As was the case in 2015, poor camera angles, skewed perspectives and bad blocking combined to create an experience that was more nightmare than wet dream. If it weren’t for Ella Nova’s anus, I likely would have written off VR porn entirely. The spirit of experimentation and innovation I saw at Kink in 2015 and in my conversations with Ela Darling, however, gave me hope that the promise of VR porn was deferred, not dead.

“If you try crappy content on a crappy device, you’re going to think VR is crap and you’re going to write it off.” — Ela Darling, Cam4VR

When I returned to Kink earlier this month, though, the excitement was gone. In January, the studio announced plans to move production to Las Vegas and focus on less-controversial pursuits at its SF headquarters. It has since sold off its treasure trove of bizarre porn props, bondage equipment and fuck machines in a series of garage sales. The paintings have been removed from the stairwells, and the once-buzzing basement is a ghost town. For now, Kink VR is on hold and Fivestar tells me the fate of her passion project is TBD.

“I really can’t say what’s next for Kink VR,” Fivestar said. “I hope that we keep pushing the technology barrier and going further and further with our content. Unfortunately, I’m not the head of the company, so I’m just waiting for instruction on that. For me, I’m just going to keep experimenting, and as long as I’m learning, I’m having fun. I’m meeting a lot of really great people in the industry who are excited about adult and VR, and I’m hoping to work with them and create experiences like people have never seen before.”

As Kink mulls its investment in VR, all eyes are on an industry that two years ago looked like a sure bet. Investment in virtual reality is still going strong, but there are signs of shifting priorities even in the mainstream. A report from Crunchbase found a decrease in funding for VR startups in the first quarter of 2017. In May, Facebook announced it would close Story Studios, Oculus’ award-winning content arm, choosing to invest in productions from third parties instead. In June, Apple introduced ARKit to jump-start augmented-reality development, effectively side-stepping VR altogether. Just two weeks ago, rumors surfaced that HTC, makers of one of the most compelling headsets on the market today, might be looking to sell its VR business.

Still, analysts, investors and VR-content creators are quick to point out that the market is in its infancy. In order to create high-quality experiences, producers are often forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars on off-the-shelf cameras or create VR rigs of their own. Creators have to have deep pockets or technological know-how just to get into the game. Once they do, the viewer’s experience is largely out of their hands. High-quality headsets like the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift are prohibitively expensive, driving most users to experience virtual reality for the first time on low-end devices like Google Cardboard.

“The proliferation of cardboard devices is great, in that it puts [virtual reality] in the hands of people who would never seek it out themselves, but the downside is that it’s the lowest possible quality experience of virtual reality,” Darling says. “So, let’s say you’re trying VR for the first time, and you’re trying it on some crappy piece of cardboard that someone sent you, and you download a porn video that is not optimized for VR and isn’t a great example of VR content. If you try crappy content on a crappy device, you’re going to think VR is crap, and you’re going to write it off.”

Ultimately, Darling says, “this is a case of ‘you have to walk before you can run.’” She says the next wave of headsets and lightweight, standalone devices like the one Oculus is reportedly producing, in conjunction with inexpensive, user-friendly 360-degree cameras will help push mainstream VR adoption and, in turn, VR-porn viewership. Like Darling, Paul believes it’s only a matter of time before VR porn has its moment.

“It’s not an if, it’s a when,” Paul says. “The technology is only gonna get better, smaller, more high quality. At some point in our lives, we’re gonna be in some sort of Star Trek holodeck, you know? It’s just a matter of time. Even if there’s, let’s say, more than a lull — let’s say there’s kind of a drought, and some of the big manufacturers aren’t pushing it as much — we’re still gonna support the technology because it’s just a matter of when.”

Porn’s impact on new technologies is near impossible to measure, much less predict. There’s no guarantee that virtual reality will be a mainstream success, no way to know if it can pull porn back from the brink or benefit from the adult industry’s carnal appeal. In the end, porn may not be VR’s killer application but, at the very least, it’s still “the biggest niche since MILF.”

Photo of Ela Darling by Wilferd Guenthoer