Category: samsung

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Vision Pro Has Apps and Quest Has Games, What Can Samsung Bring to XR to Compete?

Samsung has partnered with Google to make an XR headset, although the South Korean tech giant hasn’t tipped its hand on what to expect just yet. Despite its $3,500 sticker price, Vision Pro has shown that big and expensive is okay as long as you can engage diehard fans with compelling hardware and greater ecosystem integration. That’s a patently Apple recipe though that Samsung may not be able to easily replicate. The question is: what can Samsung bring to the table that Apple and Meta can’t? The answer may be Google, but only if it can commit.

The Meta-Apple Binary in the Making

You can’t talk about consumer XR right now without first mentioning Meta, which has undoubtedly dominated the standalone segment since the release of Quest in 2019, leaving would-be competitors to either cater to enterprise or basically stay in markets where the social media giant simply won’t (or can’t) go. That early market lead has provided the company ample time to build up an impressive content library, which has also essentially made Quest the default target platform for many XR app developers over the past four years.

Now that Apple has released Vision Pro, that landscape is set to change, although maybe not right away. At seven times the price of Quest 3, Vision Pro isn’t really a direct competitor in terms of cost-performance, but it appears Meta is gearing up anyway to deal with the future threat of successive Apple headsets.

Image courtesy Meta, Apple

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg drew some fairly clear battle lines in a recent video after trying Vision Pro himself, as he compares the two companies to computing binaries from the past. Like Windows vs. MacOS in home computers, or Android vs. iOS in mobile, Zuckerberg says he wants Quest to be the ‘open’ model in XR, while he thinks Apple will be ‘closed’, as Apple is ostensibly set to continue its walled garden approach to how it handles apps and ecosystem services on its family of devices.

Far be it from me to suggest they’re both fairly closed, although a very real binary is already here for XR enthusiasts. For now, Apple is positioning Vision Pro as a general computing device thanks to its interconnected ecosystem of iOS apps and services, while Meta is at the lower-end of the spectrum with its console-like Quest 2 and Quest 3 headsets, both of which are subsidized to encourage app sales—priced at $250 and $500 respectively.

While there’s some definite overlap in functionality, this leaves some pretty weird territory for Samsung to enter in the near term. Meta has games and Apple has its ecosystem. Samsung doesn’t really have either.

Samsung’s Balancing Act

At this point, it seems unlikely that Samsung can replicate either Apple or Meta’s specific way of doing things when it comes to releasing a standalone XR headset. Meta has invested tens of billions of dollars in XR over the years building out its console-like Quest platform, meanwhile Apple has been cooking up Vision Pro over the past decade to integrate seamlessly with its wider hardware ecosystem.

While Samsung’s headset is reportedly slated to compete with Vision Pro, we don’t precisely know what that means: Samsung could be hoping to undercut Vision Pro’s $3,500 price point with similar MR hardware, or serve up something closer to the ostensibly soon-to-be discontinued $1,000 Quest Pro, which didn’t find the footing Meta hoped for despite an excellent content library.

What we do know is the company is working with Google to provide software, and Qualcomm for its XR chip expertise. To boot, last month Qualcomm showed off a new reference MR headset made in partnership with Goertek which could point to the sort of features to expect from Samsung, as the company is using the chip-maker’s new Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 processor.

Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 reference | Image courtesy Qualcomm

The Qualcomm reference headset includes eye-tracking from Tobii, support for 4,300 × 4,300 resolution per-eye at 90Hz, 12 concurrent cameras, pancake lenses, hardware IPD adjustment, microphone array, 3.5mm headphone port, and Wi-Fi 6/6E/7. That’s not to say Samsung will include all those features, but it’s possible with Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2. Provided that carries over to Samsung hardware, it would put it somewhere north of Quest Pro in hardware features, and very likely price as well.

And we have every reason to believe Samsung will offer competent hardware too. While the Korean tech giant hasn’t created its own consumer XR platform before, in addition to being a leading display manufacturer Samsung has produced its own PC VR headsets and the smartphone-based Gear VR platform, the latter of which laid the foundation for Oculus Go and Meta Quest.

As for Google, we simply don’t know at this point how big of an involvement it will have in creating anything beyond the headset’s Android-based OS. Considering Google killed its home-grown Daydream platform in 2019, and then gutted its AR hardware team earlier this year, the company may not be in a position to lend a hand to do something as monolithic as laying the foundation for the sort of hardware-agnostic VR platform that Daydream opined to be when it launched its first (and last) standalone Daydream headset with Lenovo in 2018. Google could certify the headset to bring a massive catalogue of Android apps to Samsung’s headset by default like Apple did with its iOS apps, but then again, it might not, which could hobble Samsung’s headset and rob it of an early start as the true Android competitor to Vision Pro.

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Here’s the cynic in me: what Samsung could do to win a steady place between Apple and Meta is probably very different from what it will do. I’m expecting the company to offer great, but expensive hardware that doesn’t really succeed at offering meaningful competition to either Meta or Apple in the near term. It’ll get Samsung’s skin in the game so the company can figure out where it fits best as the market moves, but it probably won’t co-opt Google into launching the Daydream that wasn’t.

And in the wake of Apple’s entrance, it’s likely Samsung won’t be alone in entering the standalone XR space for the first time. Valve is widely rumored to be working on its own headset, codenamed ‘Deckard’, which recently was the subject of a meme-fueled website that looked to troll VR hopefuls with the release of the very fake ‘Valve Prism’.

Will Samsung offer a compelling third option in the gulf between Meta and Apple? Or are you waiting for Valve’s next move? Let us know in the comments below!

The post Vision Pro Has Apps and Quest Has Games, What Can Samsung Bring to XR to Compete? appeared first on Road to VR.

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Report: Samsung Delays XR Headset Due to Stiff Competition from Apple Vision Pro

Samsung’s upcoming XR headset, which is meant to compete with Apple Vision Pro, has been delayed by “one to two quarters” from its reported early 2024 release target, according to an SBS Biz (Korean) report.

Samsung announced in February it was developing an XR headset in partnership with Qualcomm and Google, the former supplying the device’s chipset and the latter the headset’s operating system.

The report maintains that Samsung Electronics recently notified its display manufacturing partners Samsung Display and China’s BOE that it’s postponing the release of “existing XR devices.”

Samsung was reportedly hoping to ready samples of the headset by year’s end, aiming to mass produce the device starting early next year. That’s apparently been delayed by about “one to two quarters,” or three to six months.

Quest 3 (left) and Apple Vision Pro (right) | Based on images courtesy Meta, Apple

SBS Biz cites an official familiar with Samsung’s internal affairs, maintaining the decision to delay was made in direct response to Apple Vision Pro, which was unveiled early last month during Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference.

“We decided to review all internal specifications and performance, such as the design and display of the new XR product,” the official told SBS Biz.

Provided the report holds true, it will be interesting to see Samsung shoot for the high-end, which is where Apple’s $3,500 mixed reality headset is undoubtedly headed when it launches sometime early next year. While it wasn’t clear when Samsung announced the headset earlier this year, it makes more sense the Korean tech giant would rather compete somewhere in the premium XR headset market with Apple than compete with Meta’s upcoming Quest 3 mixed reality headset, slated to launch in Fall 2023 for $500.

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Samsung Files Trademark for ‘Galaxy Glasses’ AR/VR Headset

Samsung announced last month it was partnering with Google and Qualcomm to develop an XR device, something the company said at the time was “not too far away.” While we’re still left guessing as to what sort of headset the Korean tech giant has in store, a new trademark filing has come to light which may suggest the headset’s naming scheme.

As reported by 9to5Google, Samsung filed a trademark request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on February 27th for the name ‘Galaxy Glasses’.

In its description, the trademark registration is said to cover the categories of “virtual reality headsets; Augmented reality headsets; Headphones; Smartphones; Smart glasses.”

According to a recent Washington Post interview with TM Roh, the president and head of Samsung’s mobile experience business, an upcoming Samsung XR device is “getting there, but we’re not too far away.”

Roh told WaPo that the XR headset’s chipset is going to be “a strategic collaboration with Qualcomm.” Google is building the software, while Samsung builds the hardware.

Provided the trademark isn’t just a defensive measure, and will actually be applied to a real product, Samsung would be pitching the proposed device as a part of its Galaxy line, which includes its smartphones, tablets, notebooks, smartwatches, and earbuds.

Notably, the company has never positioned its VR devices directly under its Galaxy branding, with Samsung Gear VR and its PC VR headset HMD Odyssey marketed separately from the Samsung mothership of mobile devices.

Smasung Odyssey+ | Image courtesy Samsung

It shouldn’t come as any real surprise the Korean tech giant is prepping XR hardware now. In 2021, two leaked videos surfaced featuring Samsung AR concept devices, although we haven’t heard anything since about the company’s XR ambitions until Samsung announced it was throwing its hat back in the game with Google and Qualcomm by its side.

Meanwhile, Apple’s rumored mixed reality headset is reportedly set to arrive sometime this year at around $3,000, with a lower-cost version of Apple’s mixed reality headset reportedly set to follow sometime in 2024 or early 2025.

And although Apple is largely seen as the most present threat, Meta recently released word it is not only prepping an enthusiast-targeted Quest 3 headset for release this year, and a “more accessible” consumer version in 2024, but possibly another ‘Pro’ branded Quest headset “way out in the future,” Mark Rabki, Meta’s VP of VR, allegedly told thousands of employees in a memo last week.

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Korean News: Samsung Working On Its Own AR Headset, Separate From Microsoft

Samsung is working on its own Android-based AR headset separate to Microsoft, South Korea’s Electronic Times reports.

Four weeks ago, a report from Insider’s Ashley Stewart claimed Microsoft shelved HoloLens 3 last year in favor of letting Samsung build hardware powered by Windows mixed reality software. One of Stewart’s sources described the partnership as a “shit show”. But the Electronic Times report claims Samsung is planning “its own AR devices and the AR devices developed with Microsoft”.

The report suggests Samsung will use one of its own Exynos chips in the device, rather than sourcing from Qualcomm. Samsung has apparently completed a prototype, and “is deciding the release date”.

From 2014 Samsung partnered with Facebook on the phone-based Gear VR, technically the first widely shipped consumer VR product, but by 2019 then-CTO John Carmack declared it dead as standalone headsets took over. In January 2020 at CES, Samsung showed off a concept of AR glasses, but didn’t actually say whether this was a planned product. That same month China’s intellectual property office awarded Samsung a patent for a VR headset with four tracking cameras, but no product emerged from this either.

It’s unclear what exactly would distinguish Samsung’s own headset from its partnership with Microsoft, but if the report is to believed Samsung is finally ready to re-enter this market again.