Hands-on with LG's 360 VR glasses, which connect to the new LG G5 via USB-C, have dual 1080p OLED screens
Context & Ripple Effects
This is LG's second swing at phone-based VR: a year after giving G3 buyers a free Cardboard-style headset, the company is shipping a purpose-built viewer that tethers to the new G5 over USB-C and carries its own dual 1080p OLED panels instead of using the phone's screen.
The glasses are one piece of the G5's broader accessory push alongside the phone's modular expansion slot, and they reached US shelves months later as part of the accessories launch bundle. The design bet — external displays for lightness over immersion — is exactly what CNET's subsequent review flagged as its fatal flaw.
First-order effects
- G5 buyers get a headset that is compact and comfortable but sacrifices the immersion that makes VR compelling, since the small dual-OLED optics can't match screen-based rivals.
Second-order effects
- The weak review verdict puts pressure on LG's whole G5 accessory ecosystem: if the marquee VR add-on disappoints, the modular pitch around the expansion slot loses its headline draw before the US launch momentum builds.
Third-order effects
- LG's tethered-accessory experiments ultimately bend toward screens rather than VR — by the V50 generation the company was attaching a second OLED display instead of a headset, suggesting phone-tethered VR never found a durable place in its lineup.
The trend: Phone-maker VR headsets built around flagships proved too compromised to sustain, pushing LG from cardboard giveaways to tethered optics and finally to second-screen accessories.