Samsung officially launched its new S9 and S9 Plus smartphones today. Though Gear VR wasn’t mentioned during the reveal, the company has confirmed to Road to VR that both the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus will support the 2017 Gear VR, however a new model for the launch of the phones was not announced.

Samsung launched its first Gear VR headset way back in 2014, compatible with the Note 4. Since then, the company has continuously refreshed the headset to fit newer phones, now with six different Gear VR models.

Today in Barcelona, ahead of MWC 2018, the company revealed their new Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus phones. During the announcing, the company focused heavily on the smartphone’s camera, pointing out a new super slow-mo feature, dual aperture, and some light augmented reality such as being able to translate printed words through the camera in real-time. The phones are due to be available on March 16th.

Virtual reality went nearly unmentioned during the reveal, but following the keynote, Samsung representatives confirmed to Road to VR that the new phones would support the latest 2017 Gear VR headset. However, a 2018 model won’t be launched alongside the S9 and S9 Plus.

That’s not surprising, considering the new phones are very similar in size to last year’s S8 phones, and the 2017 Gear VR already includes a USB-C adapter, meaning it can plug into the S9 phones with no problem.

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Everything You Need to Know About Samsung Gear VR Phone Compatibility

If Samsung plans to release an updated version of Gear VR for 2018, we’d expect it to come later in the year, likely during the reveal of the Note 9.

Samsung has also previously hinted at work on its own standalone headset, which would come with everything built in rather than rely on a docked smartphone. As with other company’s now launched standalone VR headsets, Samsung may be shifting its focus in that direction.

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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."
  • Jean-Sebastien Perron

    Gear VR and Daydream are dying and that is a good thing. Oculus Go should replace them all. No more poisoning the well with never quite right VR.

    • dk

      xD oculus go is a gearvr and absolutely nothing more……..but they will evolve to have 6dof and 6dof controllers …and google is ahead at the moment

      • Laurence Nairne

        Oculus Go won’t get 6DoF unless Santa Cruz fails. The serve different purposes – the N64 existed but the Gameboy was still extremely popular because of its mobility and experiences.

        • dk

          he was saying gear vr is dying when the oculus go is exactly a gear vr
          …….my point was nothing is dying and over time everything will get 6dof ……in a year when the the 835 is cheap even the cheapest/crapiest headsets like oculus go will give u an actual vr experience with 6dof …but not quite 90hz at first

          • Laurence Nairne

            Gear VR and Oculus GO are not the same though. They’re different products for a start owned by different companies.

            Yes they both use Oculus tech, mobile technologies and ARE 3DoF, but they are mutually exclusive. I expect to see plastic phone headsets to become reduced to dust collectors eventually.

            I still don’t think GO will ever have 6DoF, it’d be a terrible marketing move by Oculus to dilute their potential SC user base.

          • dk

            at the moment it is just a gearvr only it’s made by oculus……they r both 3dof headsets running the same software with no differences in features……in that sense it is literally a gearvr

            and 3dof is just one step in the evolution of headsets…..when the 835 is as cheap as the 821 with the next gen ….not investing in 2 cheap cameras for 6dof will be moronic when the difference in tracking will be day and night

          • Laurence Nairne

            Again, they are not “literally the same”. It’s a different proposition removing the need to clip a phone into the front of your headset. Heat management and battery life should be greatly improved as it only needs to do VR.

            The experiences available as a result are subject to be different (e.g. possibility of longer play sessions and more stressful CPU usage).

            That being said, I’m not expecting this to evolve into a full VR experience as I said. That’ll be the domain of the like of Santa Cruz when it finally arrives.

            Qualcomm 835 is not going to mean 6DoF in GO. It would need to be rebuilt to contain depth sending cameras which would push it into a higher price bracket.

          • dk

            again what u can do with the gearvr and the go is the same thing…..like I said in that sense it is literally the same thing

            and like I said 835 plus 2 cameras will mean 6dof ….and not investing in only 2 cheap cameras which will give u actual movement in a virtual space ….will be the biggest missed opportunity ever

            I don’t know what price brackets u r imagining …..but as soon as the 835 is cheap ….all of the cheap headsets like the go will have 6dof…..until then there is a market for 3dof headsets

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  • Ivan Mike

    no gear vr new, no party

    oculus go is the future.

    • Sky Castle

      Not even Oculus Go. Santa Cruz is where true mobile VR is headed.

    • dk

      oculis go is a gear vr with snapdragon 821 ….and the 64gb version will be 250-280 bucks
      or u can have a great phone and the option to causally use daydream and oculus home if u want ….for not too much money

      • Laurence Nairne

        As a consumer product it might fail. As a business device it could prove a miracle for saving costs and easy setup.

        • dk

          lol miracle ……and it won’t fail
          it’s just sad that they r doing 3dof standalone now and not a year ago or when the rift came out

          • Laurence Nairne

            The technology requirements at enterprise are often not so refined as those of the consumer market. Ease of setup and unit cost are of much greater importance than raw power and high-end functionality, unless the project acutely requires it.

  • AJ_74

    Gee, ya think maybe Samsung finally realized that giving away 10 million headsets isn’t a recipe for building a platform?

  • Jerald Doerr

    It wasn’t that bad.. I just think the lack of a decent controller killed it.

  • Till Eulenspiegel

    Samsung with their GearVR helped built the large VR user base, now the time is ripe – Oculus is taking over. Looks like this was the plan Facebook strategised a few years ago, Samsung now looks like a sucker. The large user base attracted developers to build a large library of apps and content. Oculus Go is the only VR device to launched with such a large amount of software to play with.

    • Laurence Nairne

      Software for Gear VR doesn’t immediately support Oculus GO. It’s supposedly trivial to update software to do so, but developers need to see a tangible benefit to commit time and money to it.

      • Till Eulenspiegel

        Oculus Go was advertised with having 1000+ apps at launch.

        • Laurence Nairne

          Yeah though there was later a clarification that not all of those would be supported from day one, only that they were capable of being supported.

          Can’t recall the source though it’s likely on here somewhere.

  • Lucidfeuer

    Why use their huge competitive advantage, turn it into profit and valuation if they can…do nothing and lose their advantage on the most crucial future consumer device market besides smartphones…

    Last year they should have brought head-tracking, this year it could have been in tune with 6DOF controller…instead they just abandoned. Between this and the “S8S”/S9, Samsung deserves a big failure on the market and stocks in 2018/2019.