Cut the VR Cord - High-End Untethered VR Headsets Are Around the Corner

One problem with the current high-end VR headsets such as Oculus Rift and HTC Vive is that they need to be tethered to a PC by cables that can get in the way of the action. The cord-free alternatives to these headsets available in the market today are lightweight mobile VR headsets such as Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard. However, such mobile phone powered headsets do not offer the same kind of immersive experience as the PC VR headsets.

Recently, a few promising cord-free high-end VR headsets have been announced:

• Qualcomm’s VR reference platform, the Qualcomm Snapdragon VR820 , which, according to Qualcomm, enables OEMs to develop standalone VR headsets optimized for VR content and applications while meeting the processing and performance demands of an all-in-one, dedicated VR headset. The VR820 includes integrated eye tracking with two cameras, dual front facing cameras for six degrees of freedom, see-through applications (mixed reality), four microphones, and gyro, accelerometer, and magnetometer sensors
• Intel’s Project Alloy, which Intel will offer as an open platform in 2017, is another untethered design. Also in the case of Project Alloy, the computing power is located in the headset itself. This allows a free range of motion with six degrees of freedom across a large space combined with collision detection and avoidance. Project Alloy relies on Intel’s RealSense cameras attached to the headset and is thus not dependent on setting up any external sensors or cameras around the room in contrast to the Rift and Vive.
• Google’s Daydream, which relies on a smartphone for display and processing power. Unlike Project Alloy and VR 820, Daydream cannot track the position of the user’s head. Thus, the user cannot move around in the virtual space. Daydream will provide better performance than the likes of Samsung Gear VR, but will probably not be able to match the performance of VR820 and Project Alloy headsets. According to Google, Daydream-ready phones, which are powered by Android 7.0 Nougat, will have high-resolution displays, ultra-smooth graphics and high-fidelity sensors for precise head tracking. Android N’s VR mode promises to allow a motion-to-photon latency of under 20ms.

Qualcomm and Intel will not be manufacturing or selling VR headsets by themselves. Rather, they will open the hardware design and APIs to other companies and developers as an effort to jumpstart the VR ecosystem. In a similar manner, Google will rely on smartphone manufacturers to produce Daydream-ready smartphones.

High-end VR headsets have not really gone mainstream yet. But perhaps this will happen with the coming cord-free high-end headsets.