The VR market has been heating up recently as Sony’s Project Morpheus and the Oculus Rift, now owned by Facebook, duke it out for the high-end market, but Samsung’s unannounced headset might be taking a different approach. SamMobile reports that it can now confirm the existence of the Gear VR, a virtual reality device that Samsung will debut alongside the Galaxy Note 4 at IFA 2014 in September.
Interestingly, the Gear VR will not be a standalone headset, but instead will have a dock where users can plug in their Galaxy devices via a USB 3.0 cable. Samsung will then use the inserted smartphone’s accelerometer, gyroscope and processing power to give the headset the ability to track the user’s head, simulating virtual reality without using built-in sensors.
If you haven’t caught on by now, this sounds a whole lot like a premium model of Google’s VR DIY Cardboard project. Of course, Samsung’s model will likely be more comfortable and require a little less assembly. This should cut down on the cost of the headset immensely, although the Gear VR also reportedly features a touchpad to navigate the interface and a see-through button which allows users to see the world through the rear cameras on their phones.
Samsung will be the developing the hardware on its own, but Oculus VR has partnered with Samsung to developer software for the Gear VR. Hopefully that means we’ll see some interesting gaming apps along with the preloaded Samsung Apps such as Theatre, 360 Player, and Gallery.
