Homemade VR Headset Uses Sony Watchman Portable TVs from the 1990s

Two tiny black-and-white CRT screens from 1990s Sony Watchman pocket TVs are getting a second life as the display for a homemade virtual reality headset that weighs about the same as commercial units but delivers a distinctly retro experience. Creator Dooglehead argues that old cathode ray tubes provide a unique visual quality that modern flat screens can't match, with their natural glow and built-in anti-aliasing that smooths jagged edges without digital processing tricks.

The ingenious setup uses a field-programmable gate array to split HDMI signals into separate analog streams for each eye, while Valve's lighthouse tracking system handles head movement detection through infrared sweeps picked up by photodiodes mounted on the cardboard shell.

Testing reveals mixed results: Beat Saber becomes challenging when trying to spot colored blocks in monochrome, but VRChat environments maintain their 3D effect despite blurry focus and narrow viewing angles. The 640×480 interlaced resolution creates surprisingly fluid animation, and the CRT's natural pixel blending produces what the creator calls a "weirdly immersive" soft haze that transforms the limitations into unexpected charm.