Google Earth VR is now eight years old, but is still fascinating. With the PC VR application, you can travel around the world in a matter of seconds, experience cities from a bird's eye view or float through urban canyons. With a feeling of immersion, scale and depth that conventional screen maps cannot convey.
For example, you can walk like Godzilla through a big city like New York, which looks like a miniature. Or fly to the top of the Burj Khalifa, shrink back to the size of a human and look down into the dizzying depths.
For a long time, this VR experience was reserved for PC VR glasses. With the introduction of the "Photorealistic 3D Tiles" interface in 2023, Google opened up access to its 3D map data for apps from third-party developers. Since then, several VR applications have appeared that enable a comparable experience without a PC on Meta Quest. We have tested the three most convincing apps and identified their similarities and differences.
The applications support all common Quest headsets. We tested them with Meta Quest 3. Although all three apps offer hand tracking, we recommend using the touch controllers.
Fly
Fly is the most beginner-friendly of the three VR apps and is particularly suitable for VR beginners and occasional users. By default, you explore the world from a futuristic flying machine. With a platform under your feet, HUD overlays and parts of the aircraft in your field of vision, Fly counteracts the motion sickness that can occur when moving around intensively in VR. If you are resistant to this phenomenon and prefer to fly completely free, you can deactivate these visual elements completely.
In Fly, you move around using a thumb stick or body movements. Unfortunately, it is not possible to fly particularly fast, which noticeably slows down the exploration of the world. This should also be a measure against motion sickness.
We liked the dynamic day/night changes, the almost seamless transition up to an altitude of 457 kilometers and the rapid loading of the 3D environment when exploring new locations.
A charming unique selling point is the ability to play music from different genres and eras via integrated radio stations. This makes exploring the world even more enjoyable.
The targeted search for places runs smoothly using integrated voice recognition. There is also a curated list of destinations and the option to be teleported to a random location. Saving and revisiting visited locations is easier than with the competition.
Fly can display 360-degree views from Google Street View, but still without the time travel function, i.e. the option to call up snapshots from previous years. Google Maps integration and a multi-user mode are also missing. Anyone who values these functions will have to switch to the competition.
EarthQuest
EarthQuest is aimed at users that value graphics and customization options and are not bothered by the app's unsightly UI design. The frame rate, resolution, display quality of the 3D environment and other parameters can be individually adjusted or set to maximum – however, this can cause the VR experience to become jerky. The textures can be scaled up if desired, but the difference can only be seen up close.
Like Fly, EarthQuest offers a dynamic day/night change. However, the environments at dawn and dusk appear somewhat blurred due to an exaggerated bloom effect.
Unlike Fly, the scale can be changed using a slider. Depending on the setting, landscapes and cities appear like miniatures or on a realistic 1:1 scale. As with Google Earth VR, the direction of flight is controlled by the orientation of the touch controller. Those who do not tolerate the intensive movement well can activate an artificial tunnel view.
EarthQuest is also based on its big role model when it comes to Google Street View. A spherical preview appears on your hand and you can switch to the 360-degree view at any time at the touch of a button. Overall, EarthQuest offers the best Street View integration of the three apps tested.
A small Google Maps map at hand helps with navigation, but a much larger map view would have been desirable. A multiplayer mode is available via private rooms and room codes.
Wooorld
Wooorld is strongly geared towards social world exploration and is a social platform in its own right. However, if you want, you can also use the app on its own. It is the most feature-rich of all three VR applications, but that is not to its advantage. The range of functions has grown steadily over the years, and anyone starting the app for the first time will quickly feel overwhelmed by the numerous features. There are AI-supported tours, a social geo-guessing game, an AI assistant (for a fee) and much more. The menus and user interfaces all appear as 2D windows and take little account of the requirements of virtual reality.
We liked the large, centered Google Maps map, which can be shown or hidden at any time at the touch of a button. Anyone planning a city trip or a hike is best advised to use World. Although stores and restaurants are displayed, the info boxes familiar from Google Maps cannot be called up.
When moving around, Wooorld is based on Google Earth VR and, thanks to voice recognition, you can switch quickly and easily between different locations. A nice unique selling point of Wooorld is the camera mode, which can be used to take photos of the surroundings and avatar selfies against a suitable background.
Wooorld was temporarily free of charge, but has since become a paid app again. Anyone who buys the VR app automatically receives the Explorer+ feature package, which was previously available separately.
Conclusion
There is no clear winner: Fly, EarthQuest and Wooorld each have their own focus, bring different strengths and weaknesses to the table and are aimed at different target groups. The resolution and level of detail in all three VR apps are appealing and in some cases highly customizable.
What you shouldn't expect from any of these applications is a fully-fledged replacement for Google Earth VR. Google's PC VR application remains a masterpiece of intuitive UI design that none of the VR apps tested can match. Of course, there are also graphical losses, as there is significantly less computing power available on stand-alone VR headsets. On the other hand, some of the Quest applications offer functions that Google Earth VR lacks, such as a multi-user mode.
As there is fierce competition between Fly, EarthQuest and Wooorld, the apps are constantly being developed further. The functions listed in this article and the following table should therefore be seen as a snapshot and not as a permanent feature.
Google Earth VR will remain a hot topic beyond Meta Quest: Project Moohan, the first VR glasses based on Android XR, will be released later this year and, according to initial previews, it will include a new VR implementation of Google Maps and Google Earth.
(dahe)
