Samsung showed off its ExynosVR III standalone VR headset at Mobile World Congress Shanghai recently, a reference design headset that is meant to be used without the inclusion of a smartphone being slotted into its like its already available Gear VR. This is only a concept at the moment so it won’t be something that consumers can get their hands on, but it displays that Samsung hasn’t been resting on its laurels in regards to the VR space, and that it seems to have every intention of putting out a piece of hardware that is capable of being used as a standalone unit that doesn’t rely on external hardware to power the experience.
The ExynosVR III headset appears to have what looks like four cameras on the front of it used for tracking to let the user wear the headset and move around, similar to the way you can do so with headsets like the HTC Vive and the Pico Neo CV, though there weren’t any details mentioned about the cameras. The headset itself is powered by an M2 Dual 2.5GHz processor and an ARM Makli G71 MP20 Graphics Processor, and will reportedly allow for 4K resolution at 75 frames per second as well as Wide Quad Definition at 90 frames per second.
As the headset itself is meant to be a reference design Samsung will likely not release this particular unit for consumers but there’s always a chance that it will end up launching a unit based on this design sometime in the future, and being a reference design means that other companies will have the chance to build its own headsets based on this unit as well, which a company called Visual Camp is already doing. With Samsung now working on standalone VR technology it’s joining other OEMs which are already doing the same thing, such as Lenovo and HTC’s Vive team which are creating standalone VR headsets for the Daydream platform, though how closely it will compete with those two headsets is unclear since those aren’t going to be reference designs and Samsung hasn’t laid out any actual plans for the ExynosVR III in terms of offering it to consumers.