Feasibility of Gear VR development using Unity Free?

Hi everyone, first post, all that jazz.

I have just installed the Unity free version on my pc with the intention of using it's Gear VR support as an excuse to finally learn Unity. At this point in time however I 100% can't afford the pro version so I'm wondering if this is at all a realistic thing. I understand that the free version now supports the Gear VR (awesome move on the part of Unity!) but is also missing some key features such as batching that make a massive performance difference.

My game design is for a simple environment that would suit stylised graphics, so I'm not worried about having to turn down the bells and whistles, just wondering if anyone has experience with using the free version of Unity on Gear VR and managing to produce something that can run at the necessary 60fps.

 

So far I'm using the Android Free version to publish for Gear VR and it works fine. I can't use the static batching, but for now we don't need that since we use a very simple VR application. However for in the future with full realtime environments this is something you really want to use, especially Umbra Occlusion Culling. Personally I would just check with the free version how far you can get and if you really need pro, ask for a 30 day trial and check it out if it makes a huge difference.

 

Thanks for the reply. I got the option for the 30 day free trial when installing so know that is there as an option, just don't want to become reliant on Pro optimisations when I won't be able to use them beyond that limited period. Hopefully I can make something cool to contribute to this community.