Skip to main content

Google kills Daydream with a lack of support on the Google Pixel 4

It looks like Google Daydream is dead. Google confirmed that the new Google Pixel 4 smartphones will not support the Daydream virtual reality platform, and will no longer sell the Daydream View headset.

“Over time we noticed some clear limitations constraining smartphone VR from being a viable long-term solution,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement. “We noticed some clear limitations constraining smartphone VR from being a viable long-term solution. Most notably, asking people to put their phone in a headset and lose access to the apps they use throughout the day causes immense friction.”

Recommended Videos

It’s kind of a fitting end for Google Daydream to die alongside the Pixel 4. Daydream was first launched as a platform alongside the original Pixel phone, and a number of smartphone manufacturers added support for it in the following years. That said, adoption seems to have been relatively slow, and no new phones this year officially support the platform — including the Pixel 3a that was released earlier in the year.

Of course, just because Daydream as a platform is on its way out, that doesn’t mean that virtual reality, in general, is a dying concept. Most major tech companies are investing a ton of cash into augmented reality tech, and much of that is mobile-based. Apple, for example, has been putting a ton of work into ARKit, a set of developer tools for implementing augmented reality experiences on the iPhone. Google’s version of that is ARCore. Most of these AR experiences involve using a phone, such as Wayfair’s app that allows you to see what its furniture would look like in your home.

Most of the top virtual reality experiences these days involve either connecting a headset to a high-performance computer for high-end games, or playing slightly lower-power games on stand-alone headsets like the Oculus Go. Virtual reality headsets may not have hit the mainstream the way that some companies, like Oculus, would have liked, but in certain niches like immersive gaming, there are some great apps on offer.

We’ll have to wait and see if Google makes another attempt at virtual reality at some point in the future. The company is no stranger to killing apps and platforms and trying again later, as it has done time and time again when it comes to messaging.

Christian de Looper
Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…
Google Chrome is getting an AI-powered scam sniffer for Android phones
Scam warning from Chrome on Android.

Google’s Chrome browser has offered a rich suite of privacy and safety features for a while now. Take, for example, Enhanced Safe Browsing, which was introduced back in 2020. It protects users against unsafe websites and files by using real-time threat detection. 

Three years later, Google switched it from an opt-in mode to a default safety protocol to guard users against phishing attacks, bad extensions, and malicious downloads. Now, the company is deploying its Gemini Nano AI to safeguard smartphone users against potential online scams, especially those hiding as a tech security warning on webpages.

Read more
Google just leaked images of the upcoming Android redesign
Design elements Google Material 3 Expressive.

Google is due to unveil its new "Material 3 Expressive" design system at I/O 2025 this month, but someone at the company accidentally published a blog post about it this week. It was promptly deleted but the Wayback Machine already archived it and the quick-thinking folks at 9to5Google saved the images as well.

The blog post itself was all about the research that went into the new design system for Android 16. Google spent three years carrying out various studies and experiments with over 18,000 participants, including:

Read more
I’ll buy the Pixel Watch 4 if Google changes this one feature
The display on the Google Pixel Watch 3.

Personally, the Google Pixel Watch 3 was the success story of 2024. In just three generations, Google debuted the Pixel Watch, a pretty terrible smartwatch, improved it massively for the Pixel Watch 2, and then perfected it with the Pixel Watch 3. And I'll admit, it's a comeback story I wasn't expecting to see. Sure, I'd noticed the Pixel Watch 2 was pretty good, but at no point did I expect it to smash through the glass ceiling in my yearning heart marked "Only Samsung Galaxy Watches here". But smash through it did, and through the shards of raining glass it rose, like an ascending angel.

Alright, so I'm laying it on a little thick. But it's important to note quite how desirable the Pixel Watch has become in the last year. I'm even considering giving up my own hard-earned cash in return for the Google Pixel Watch 4 when it releases later this year. Except, there's one little issue I have with the Pixel Watches, and have had since the beginning. And until that one problem is changed, I can't see myself buying the Pixel Watch 4, or any future Pixel Watch.

Read more