BobbleVR — Head-Tracked YouTube VR Viewer

About

BobbleVR turns your webcam into a head tracker for YouTube VR videos. Just
  click the icon on any YouTube 360° or VR180 video, and your head movements
  control where you look — no VR headset required.

  HOW IT WORKS
  • Click the BobbleVR icon while a YouTube VR video is playing
  • Allow camera access for face tracking
  • Move your head to look around the scene
  • Lean in to zoom, scroll wheel for manual zoom
  • Press SHIFT to recenter your view

  SUPPORTED FORMATS
  • YouTube EAC 360° (mono and 3D stereo SBS/TB)
  • Equirectangular 360° (mono, side-by-side, top-bottom)
  • VR180 (mono, side-by-side, top-bottom)
  • Flat video mode for any video

  FORMAT AUTO-DETECTION
  BobbleVR automatically detects the video projection format from YouTube
  metadata. If auto-detection fails, press - (flat mode) to inspect the raw
  video frame, then use number keys 1-9 to quickly switch between formats until
  the image looks correct.

  KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
    1-9: Switch video format (EAC, 360°, VR180, etc.)
    -: Flat video mode
    =: Retry auto-detection
    SHIFT: Recenter view
    H: Hide/show controls
    ESC: Close viewer
    Arrow keys: Seek 5 seconds
    Scroll wheel: Zoom in/out

  PRIVACY
  • Camera data is processed entirely on-device using MediaPipe Face Landmarker
  • Video frames are never recorded, stored, or transmitted
  • One-time download of face tracking model from Google CDN, then cached
  locally
  • No ads, analytics, or data collection of any kind

  TECHNICAL DETAILS
  • Uses Three.js for real-time 3D rendering
  • MediaPipe Face Landmarker for precise head pose estimation
  • Exponential smoothing for fluid camera movement
  • Chrome Manifest V3 extension

  Open source (MIT): https://github.com/knoguchi/bobblevr