Samsung's Gear lineup of virtual reality headsets has effectively been on ice since 2017. Even though newer handsets have support for its virtual reality platform, the headset hasn't received an update in over two years. The company wants you to know that it hasn't given up and that there will be “multiple AR and VR products” being launched soon.
These remarks were made by Samsung's director of developer relations for XR and gaming Farshid Fallah at the Augmented World Expo in California this week. He said that these products will be released in the coming months.
Samsung working on new AR and VR products
Fallah didn't go into details about what these products will be. We know that there hasn't been a new Gear VR since the Samsung Gear VR with Controller was released in April 2017. It did release the HMD Odyssey+ Windows Mixed Reality headset late last year but at $499, it's not something that aimed at the average user.
He was talking about Samsung's broader efforts with augmented and virtual reality, particularly the augmented reality features of the Galaxy S10. He suggested during the talk that Samsung has “other plans for Gear,” without providing any further details. Could Samsung release a new virtual reality headset in the coming months? One can argue that it's about time that the company did that. A new VR headset with significantly improved internals would certainly be well received by fans of the platform.
The obvious thing would be to launch this new headset alongside the Galaxy Note 10 later this year. However, there's little to suggest right now that a new headset is also on the docket for the company's next flagship launch. It won't happen until August at the very least so things could change by then.
We have also talked about the possibility that Samsung may ditch the Gear VR brand in favor of Galaxy VR. That's something it has done for its wearable devices so it's entirely possible that the same may also be done for the virtual reality headset.
