At the Galaxy Unpacked event in February 2023, Samsung announced that it is working with Google and Qualcomm for a new XR headset. Samsung’s President & Head of MX Division, TM Roh, suggested that the company will soon launch the XR headset. It was also reported that after Apple unveiled the Vision Pro headset, Samsung canceled the initial prototype it was working on and started developing an entirely new XR headset.
Now, images and specifications of that allegedly canceled XR headset from Samsung have leaked. Vrtuoluo, a Chinese website, has posted images of an XR headset which it claims to be a prototype of the upcoming XR headset from Samsung (via Android Authority). Going by these images, the Samsung XR headset seems to have the same design philosophy as Galaxy VR with a few changes. For starters, this one has four cameras, one on each corner of the front panel. Plus, there are two RGB cameras for color passthrough and a depth sensor for tracking the environment and hand movements.
According to the publication, the Samsung XR headset has OLED displays, and the company has utilized pancake lenses for these screens to keep the thickness of the visor at a minimum. Reportedly, the XR headset from Samsung does not have a handheld controller. Instead, the headset uses eye and hand tracking to allow users to control it, just like the Apple Vision Pro. The publication also claims that it uses an Exynos 2200 SoC instead of the Qualcomm XR chipset that everyone was expecting it to feature. So, it almost confirms that it is an older prototype that Samsung was working on.
While the Samsung XR headset does not seem to have hardware as impressive as the Apple Vision Pro, it would have cost much less, with an expected price tag between $1,000 and $2,000. Recent reports have suggested that Samsung delayed the launch of the XR headset till 2024 as it wants to revisit the product to make it a better competitor to the Apple Vision Pro, so the newer product could be more premium with a price tag to match.
