Google is rumored to show off a new VR headset at Google I/O tomorrow, which if true, would likely happen during the Keynote speech that starts at 10 AM. The Keynote speech would be the time that Google announced the Daydream platform at last year’s conference, though it didn’t actually unveil the first piece of hardware that would run on that platform until the Fall of last year, which is the headset now known as the Daydream View.
The rumor comes from “multiple sources” who are familiar with the details and according to the rumor the headset shown at tomorrow’s big event will be the highly-anticipated standalone virtual reality headset option that has been talked about since the beginning of last year. The fact that it would be a standalone unit would make it so that it lacks any requirement to be connected to a smartphone as it would operate completely and independently without any additional power source or CPU from an outside device. Everything is said to be housed inside of the headset itself, not too unlike the range of headsets that come from Pico Interactive, such as the recently announced Pico Goblin that was unveiled earlier this month as well as the Pico Neo CV that was shown off during CES earlier this year.
The headset is said to include technology called inside-out positional tracking and was referred to as “cutting edge,” albeit without any specific details on what sort of cutting edge tech exactly is being implemented within the unit. Keeping all of this in mind, Google could also keep the preview of the headset to a limited standing and may not show it off during the Keynote speech which will be live streamed for everyone around the world to see. Regardless of when Google chooses to unveil it though, a standalone VR headset would help Google move past one of the main issues with the current Daydream View headset – the fact that it has a limited scope of compatibility in regards to devices that need to be connected to it for the whole thing to work. With a standalone model anyone that was interested in checking out what Daydream has to offer would be able to do so by picking up this VR headset.