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I've been going through the demos that Google provides on the Cardboard site and it's pretty incredible. There were some fleeting moments of forgetting what I was doing. If you can get the side light blocked out, get it comfortable on your face, let go with your hands, and just relax, it feels like you're standing in a completely different room.
Input is nigh impossible. They have a magnetic clicker in their design. I reach under the bottom of mine and tap the screen. It's kind of weird to see a super large finger come in and poke at an invisible glass wall between me and the thing I'm trying to touch. Regardless, I don't think I'd like the clicker. Touching the contraption cements it into reality. The best effect for me came from letting go. Voice commands coupled with radial heads-up menus are probably the best bet. Perhaps nod-to-confirm, shake-to-cancel could be implemented.
The demos that had flat wall surfaces seemed the most convincing. There was a tour of Versailles that at first seemed really bad, while it was still outdoors. Once it got indoors, the photo quality didn't actually improve at all, but the notion of the walls really helped sell it. I stood in front of a painting of Marie Antoinette and surprised myself when I tried to step closer, only to bump into a table in meatspace.
There was a demo of YouTube where it simulated a large screen TV in front of you, and you peered around the TV to select the video, like they were on shelves 360 degrees around you. That one also worked really well, other than being stuck with someone else's selection of videos, it really felt like sitting in front of a big TV in a very dark room.
A video from a helicopter flying over the Great Barrier Reef further supported my experience that constrained rooms are better.
There were some other things, but not a lot to write home about. I'm surprised there aren't any telepresence demos yet.
