Samsung is working on a new VR headset with positional tracking according to the company’s VP Taeyong Kim, which held a small talk during Samsung’s Developer Conference earlier this afternoon. There seems to be little in the way of details about his new headset which includes the lack of an official name for the hardware, and Samsung didn’t officially mention the new headset during the conference keynote, so it’s likely that the company is still very much in the earlier development phases of the hardware.
That said it does appear that there were some things mentioned about what it will offer feature-wise. In addition to the inside-out positional tracking capabilities, which Samsung is reportedly working with Intel on to make it all possible, the new headset will also offer 6DoF motion controls, which would allow for more depth of field like effects, such as being able to reach out in front of you and grab or touch objects. This would be a nice improvement over the 3DoF controls which are currently used for most mobile VR headsets, including Samsung’s own Gear VR headset that’s on the market.
Samsung didn’t mention whether or not this would be the next piece of hardware in the Gear VR lineup, so it’s entirely possible that it could be a standalone mobile VR headset similar to the upcoming HTC Vive Focus, which is HTC’s standalone Daydream headset that is supposed to launch before the end of the year. 6DoF controls and inside-out positional tracking are the only two features that were specifically mentioned by Chung during the talk, but it was also mentioned that Samsung is working on a bunch of new features for the system which means there will be more exciting stuff to look out for once the headset launches that will be an improvement over what’s currently available from Samsung at the moment. Though new features like the two mentioned could end up meaning a higher price tag, right now there was no detail given about a cost for this new headset nor were there any hints to a potential price range, so it could be more or the same cost as Samsung’s Gear VR.