Along with the latest batch of photos for the Oculus Rift consumer headset, we get a high resolution look under the shell of the hotly anticipated device.

oculus-rift-dk2-latency-tester-21
Oculus Rift DK2 controler board

Oculus has never been shy about showing what’s under the hood. When they revealed the Rift DK2 development kit back in March, 2014, they showed bare photos of the unit’s circuit board, proudly stamped with the company logo.

Last year at their inaugural developer conference, Oculus Connect, the company open-sourced the Oculus Rift DK1 development kit by putting the entirety of its design, from the shell to the circuity to the firmware, online for anyone to use.

See Also: Oculus Open-sources Rift DK1: Mechanical Designs, Firmware, and More All Freely Available

oculus-rift-dk2-teardownAlso back in 2014, when iFixit got their hands on the DK2, they pried it open and uncovered that hidden inside the headset was the screen of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3, apparently plucked right from the production line as the device’s touchscreen was still attached. This interesting foreshadowing heralded the work between Oculus and Samsung on the Gear VR headset that was revealed later that year.

See Also: The Touchscreen from a Samsung Smartphone is Hidden Inside Every Oculus Rift DK2

The consumer Oculus Rift is confirmed to be using dual 1080×1200 OLED displays. It hasn’t been confirmed, but we’d guess that Samsung remains the manufacturer.

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Simon

    Nice industrial design. The skeleton/cloth approach must save a lot of weight and allow for some air movement as a bonus.

  • SuperDre

    It seems like the whole vizor has a cloth around it instead of just plastic..

    to be honest, I don’t really like the new design.. but if it’s light and comfortable I really don’t care (that much)….

    Now, how much is the bugger gonna sell for…

  • Don Gateley

    With 1080 vertical resolution it better sell super cheap. Imagine a movie screen on that and how many of those 1080 lines it encompasses. Your movie’s resolution will be less than seeing it on old fashioned standard definition television. That certainly won’t satisfy the general public who’s hunger for media and “live” experience must be fed in order to fund content development.

    Despite all the hype this remains a niche product for gamers who care much less about detail than about effects. General public VR remains a future hope until a display revolution happens.

    • kalqlate

      ???

    • SuperDre

      First, it’s the 1080 is the horizontal resolution, 1200 is the vertical..
      Second, it will be perfectly capable for watching movies, most people use a crap compressed file/streaming anyway and not a real bluray..
      Third, you cannot say anything about the image quality without actually watching it yourself, purely based on some written down specs..
      Fourth, yes a much higher resolution would be welcome, BUT currently there just isn’t the graphical power on the market to actually push those screens, even a titan X won’t be able to push 2 4K screens at 90+fps with the high fidelity you are talking about..
      So having much better resolution screen at this point is just a waste of money for a VR-vizor which is meant for the midrange market..
      And ofcourse VR will remain a niche product for the coming years, did you really expect something else?

      I get a little bit fed up with people bitching about the resolution without having actually seen it in action or have actually used any older vr-vizors.. If you are really stuck on the resolution, then VR is not your ‘love’, because someone who is actually into VR knows resolution isn’t everything, VR is about immersion, and immersion is more than seeing pixels..

      • crim3

        Despite that fair enumeration of facts, Don Gateley is not complaining, he’s just describing the reality of the majority of consumers, that will try it and say “this looks like crap, I’ll stick to my monitor”.

        • SuperDre

          Well, that’s a problem with a lot of you guys, you think YOU are a regular consumer, but you aren’t..
          A lot of regular consumers WILL be pleased with the new experience the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive will give despite the (for snobs) ‘low’ resolution.. (let’s not forget the ammount of cheap tablets/devices there are out there which ‘we’ would never buy, but the ‘regular’ consumer buys in truckloads…

          Yes, some will say “I’ll stick to my monitor” after playing a game like Alien Isolation, but not due to the resolution, but to the experience being too real…

          • Curtrock

            @SuperDre: I agree with you. Achieving presence is the thing. Period. People who like to analyze tech specs (myself included) don’t represent the “majority of consumers”.