Samsung has been one of the early adopters of virtual reality. The Gear VR has done pretty well for Samsung, despite only being available for a select few Samsung smartphones – and not all Android smartphones. The Gear VR was developed in partnership with Oculus, which is why all of the content for the Gear VR is delivered via the Oculus Store. However, Samsung has noted that they are working on their own standalone virtual reality headset. What that means, is that this is a headset that will workout without a smartphone. Similar to the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Now where this would be a direct competitor to the Oculus Rift, it’s safe to say that Samsung isn’t working with Oculus on this headset.
Back in April of this year, when Samsung confirmed their plans, there wasn’t much else known about the product at the time. However, according to Galaxy Club, who has supposedly gotten their hands on a trademark application from Samsung. It appears that the device will be named “Odyssey” at least for now. That may always change in the future, and it could even be part of the “Gear” line that Samsung has developed over the years. This trademark application doesn’t reveal much about Odyssey, since this is essentially for the name and not the product itself, that shouldn’t be too surprising. However, it does mention “headsets for use with computers” there’s also another line stating “virtual reality game headsets”. Which pretty much confirms that this is a virtual reality headset of some kind.
This application also doesn’t show us how close we are to seeing the product. Whether Samsung may announce it at Unpacked in about two weeks, or it may be announced later on – perhaps with the Galaxy S8 next year in Barcelona. It is, however, likely that this won’t be the successor to the Gear VR, and would be offered alongside the Gear VR. A new Gear VR will be announced with the Galaxy Note 7 on August 2nd, since the Galaxy Note 7 is using a USB Type-C port, and the existing Gear VR only supports micro USB. The Samsung Odyssey shouldn’t be too far out, and it’ll be interesting to see how it stacks up to the likes of the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and other standalone virtual reality headsets that come out between now and then.
