Bring the Cosmos to YOU with the Personal Planetarium Universe2go
The Personal Planetarium Universe2go provides the experience of an immersive interstellar planetarium anywhere you take it!
Kids will love it, adults will love it, grandma will definitely love it – it’s an educational and entertaining augmented reality experience for the whole family! Learn about all of the wonders of the universe from the comfort of your own backyard.
The Personal Planetarium Universe2go from Omegon offers the cosmos’s limitless capacity for exploration in a fun, educational, and interactive format. Hours of encapsulating content are stored in this fully immersive augmented reality star viewer. All that’s required is the Personal Planetarium itself, your smartphone, and the accompanying Universe2go app (in six different languages!).
Utilising augmented reality technology, the Personal Planetarium Universe2go creates an educational star map similar to many star gazing apps but with a much more immersive twist. Your smartphone is slotted into the Personal Planetarium device – a viewing device mixed somewhere between a pair of binoculars and a virtual reality headset – and the app projects an interactive starscape that aligns with the night sky and teaches the viewer about all the objects within it.
I could say this star viewer is an edutaining gadget for kids – and it is – but adults and astral junkies will equally get a kick out of the interstellar exploration too! However, regardless of your age, the emphasis here is on edutainment.
Contained within the augmented reality universe of the Personal Planetarium is the complete Hipparcos Catalogue – approximately 120,000 start total. Across 8 different modes, you’ll find the mythos of all 88 constellations to explore PLUS 150 specially-edited images of deep-sky objects (nebulae, comets, satellites, etc.) directly from the Hubble Space Telescope and other professional sources. This is accompanied by more than 3 hours of audio content to guide you through the cosmos.
The Personal Planetarium is an innovative and incredible way to both learn and have fun at the same time. You can have the entire universe projected into your home, from your backyard, on a family camping trip, or anywhere else. It will keep the kids entertained for hours and they’ll come away with endless amounts of trivia too.
Key Features
Astronomy need not be so dull! Keep the kids engrossed for hours all the while learning valuable information about the universe we live in.
Explore a huge range of interstellar entities across 8 different modes. Of the modes, my personal favourite has to be the “Mythology Mode”: learn about the ancient legends and civilisations that inspired the constellations of our night sky!
While other gadgets offering astral edutainment generally are projectors or apps, the Personal Planetarium Universe2go is a fully immersive and hyper-realistic method of exploration through the magic of augmented reality. Don’t just see the universe: experience the universe.
And take it anywhere! All that’s needed is an app-equipped smartphone and the star viewer itself. It’s cheaper than a telescope, more portable than a projector, and offers countless hours of fun-filled learning.
Drawbacks
- Not all smartphones are compatible with the Personal Planetarium Universe2go and I’d strongly recommend checking the compatibility of your phone before you buy.
- The virtual starscape of the Personal Planetarium can be challenging to calibrate and isn’t always strictly one-to-one with the actual night sky, however, the information is entirely accurate content.
Our Final Opinion on this Gadget
The Personal Planetarium Universe2go is a nifty product that uses the immersion of augmented reality to deliver both the mystery and knowledge of the universe in a delightfully engaging format. It’s fun for the whole family. Kids will love learning with this level of gamified interaction and parents will adore both the value it delivers and also a cheeky exploration of the cosmos themselves!
It’s not a perfect product. It’s a gadget in a still-emerging technological space and, at times, the inaccuracies show. However, for the price point and the huge array of educational but engaging content it offers in a novel format, it’s a terrific way for anyone to get involved in dissecting and understanding astronomy. Plus, it’s so portable you can take it anywhere.
Ultimately, despite its imperfections, the name is no lie: it IS a personal planetarium and a universe-to-go. And with the Personal Planetarium Universe2go, you quite literally have the entire universe in the palm of your hands.
FAQ
The dimensions of the Personal Planetarium are approximately 21 centimetres by 13 centimetres by 12 centimetres with a total weight of just under 400 grams. At that size, it is comfortable to wear and use in most settings.
Listed on the Personal Planetarium website are the Apple iPhone models 5, 6, 7, 8, X, XS, SE, and 11 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy models S6, S7, S8, and S9. Additionally, the app is supported by Apple iOS 9.3 or higher and Android OS 5.0 or higher. Furthermore, the smartphone must have fully functional GPS, compass, gyro, and acceleration sensors. For a much more comprehensive list of phone compatibility, check the Personal Planetarium compatibility table listed on the Universe2go’s official site.
There are 8 modes in total: Starter, Discoverer, Mythology, Deep-Sky, 3D, Quiz Mode, and a Search mode that functions like a navigation system. All modes offer different styles of interaction and educational content, and additionally, there is an “Expert” mode that offers customisability over the features you’d like to engage with.
Many years, several break-ups, and one university diploma ago, Ziggy hit the road with little more than his trusty uke and 4-coloured pen to chase the dream of the wandering writer. Some years later, now an adept freelancer, travel writer, and editorial lead, he put the backpack down and leaned into the slow life instead, watching the clouds of Tasmania with his partner and wide assortment of hard-earned camping, camera, and travel gadgetry.