LeEco has held its first press conference in North America earlier today and we are getting to see a number of the company’s new products. One of these new products, which was only shown on a screen for a handful of seconds, is the new ExploreVR headset. This is a headset which is designed to carry the LeEco Le Pro 3 smartphone, which is based around the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset. The new virtual reality headset also includes a USB Type-C connector and LeEco explained that it will also work with Bluetooth headphones, which most smartphone-based VR headset manufacturers don’t recommend – due to audio latency and quality issues. The ExploreVR headset contains what LeEco is calling a “premium memory foam lining” for the best possible comfort, as this will adapt to fit the contours of the wearer’s face. There are high-precision aspheric lenses included in the unit plus a proximity sensor that will pause or restart playback when the headset is removed or put back on. LeEco has also included a 10,000 Hz IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) – a sensor designed to reduce head tracking latency to the minimum.
Unfortunately, LeEco did not detail the accompanying software that would be driving the ExploreVR headset, which could end up being an important aspect in deciding whether this is a headset worth picking up. Nor did the Chinese company provide any more details regarding the additional specification of the headset, or its handset-compatibility (beyond the Le Pro 3). As a result, there are no current details on pricing for the headset or its availability, other than mentioning that the United States launch is in just two weeks (November 2). LeEco has a habit of bundling content with new products, so there’s a chance that the Chinese company will include one or more movies with the ExploreVR – and it is also possible that the virtual reality headset will also use Google’s new Daydream VR ecosystem. With only two weeks to go until the product actually launches, we will not have to wait too long to see how LeEco is planning to tackle the emerging (VR) virtual reality scene.