Samsung is the first partner to formally announce a new MR headset based on the newly announced Android XR. The device, codenamed “Project Moohan,” is planned for consumer release in 2025. We went hands on with an early version.

Note: Samsung and Google aren’t yet sharing any key details for this headset like resolution, weight, field-of-view, or price. During my demo I also wasn’t allowed to capture photos or videos, so we only have an official image for the time being.

If I told you that Project Moohan felt like a mashup between Quest and Vision Pro, you’d probably get the idea that it has a lot of overlapping capabilities. But I’m not just making a rough analogy. Just looking at the headset, it’s clear that it has taken significant design cues from Vision Pro. Everything from colors to button placement to calibration steps, make it unmistakably aware of other products on the market.

And then on the software side, if I had told you “please make an OS that mashes together Horizon OS and VisionOS,” and you came back to me with Android XR, I’d say you nailed the assignment.

It’s actually uncanny just how much Project Moohan and Android XR feel like a riff on the two other biggest headset platforms.

But this isn’t a post to say someone stole something from someone else. Tech companies are always borrowing good ideas and good designs from each other—sometimes improving them along the way. So as long as Android XR and Project Moohan got the good parts of others, and avoided the bad parts, that’s a win for developers and users.

And many of the good parts do indeed appear to be there.

Hands-on With Samsung Project Moohan Android XR Headset

Image courtesy Google

Starting from the Project Moohan hardware—it’s a good-looking device, no doubt. It definitely has the ‘goggles’-style look of Vision Pro, as well as a tethered battery pack (not pictured above).

But where Vision Pro has a soft strap (that I find rather uncomfortable without a third-party upgrade), Samsung’s headset has a rigid strap with tightening dial, and an overall ergonomic design that’s pretty close to Quest Pro. That means an open-peripheral design which is great for using the headset for AR. Also like Quest Pro, the headset has some magnetic snap-on blinders for those that want a blocked-out peripheral for fully immersive experiences.

And though the goggles-look and even many of the button placements (and shapes) are strikingly similar to Vision Pro, Project Moohan doesn’t have an external display to show the user’s eyes. Vision Pro’s external ‘EyeSight’ display has been criticized by many, but I maintain it’s a desirable feature, and one that I wish Project Moohan had. Coming from Vision Pro, it’s just kind of awkward to not be able to ‘see’ the person wearing the headset, even though they can see you.

Samsung has been tight-lipped about the headset’s tech details, insisting that it’s still a prototype. However, we have learned the headset is running a Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 processor, a more powerful version of the chip in Quest 3 and Quest 3S.

In my hands-on I was able to glean a few details. For one, the headset is using pancake lenses with automatic IPD adjustment (thanks to integrated eye-tracking). The field-of-view feels smaller than Quest 3 or Vision Pro, but before I say that definitively, I first need to try different forehead pad options (confirmed to be included) which may be able to move my eyes closer to the lenses for a wider field-of-view.

From what I got to try however, the field-of-view did feel smaller—albeit, enough to still feel immersive—and so did the sweet spot due to brightness fall-off toward the outer edges of the display. Again, this is something that may improve if the lenses were closer to my eyes, but the vibe I got for now is that, from a lens standpoint, Meta’s Quest 3 is still leading, followed by Vision Pro, with Project Moohan a bit behind.

Although Samsung has confirmed that Project Moohan will have its own controllers, I didn’t get to see or try them yet. I was told they haven’t decided if the controllers will ship with the headset by default or be sold separately.

So it was all hand-tracking and eye-tracking input in my time with the headset. Again, this was a surprisingly similar mashup of both Horizon OS and VisionOS. You can use raycast cursors like Horizon OS or you can use eye+pinch inputs like VisionOS. The Samsung headset also includes downward-facing cameras so pinches can be detected when your hands are comfortably in your lap.

When I actually got to put the headset on, the first thing I noticed was how sharp my hands appeared to be. From memory, the headset’s passthrough cameras appear to have a sharper image than Quest 3 and less motion blur than Vision Pro (but I only got to test in excellent lighting conditions). Considering though how my hands seemed sharp but things further away seemed less so, it almost felt like the passthrough cameras might have been focused at roughly arms-length distance.

Continue on Page 2: Inside Android XR »

Inside Android XR

Anyway, onto Android XR. As said, it’s immediately comparable to a mashup of Horizon OS and VisionOS. You’ll see the same kind of ‘home screen’ as Vision Pro, with app icons on a transparent background. Look and pinch to select one and you get a floating panel (or a few) containing the app. It’s even the same gesture to open the home screen (look at your palm and pinch).

The system windows themselves look closer to those of Horizon OS than VisionOS, with mostly opaque backgrounds and the ability to move the window anywhere by reaching for an invisible frame that wraps around the entire panel.

In addition to flat apps, Android XR can do fully immersive stuff too. I got to see a VR version of Google Maps which felt very similar to Google Earth VR, allowing me to pick anywhere on the globe to visit, including the ability to see locations like major cities modeled in 3D, Street View imagery, and, newly, volumetric captures of interior spaces.

While Street View is monoscopic 360 imagery, the volumetric captures are rendered in real-time and fully explorable. Google said this was a gaussian splat solution, though I’m not clear on whether it was generated from existing interior photography that’s already available on standard Google Maps, or if it required a brand new scan. It wasn’t nearly as sharp as you’d expect from a photogrammetry scan, but not bad either. Google said the capture was running on-device and not streamed, and that sharpness is expected to improve over time.

Google Photos has also been updated for Android XR, including the ability to automatically convert any existing 2D photo or video from your library into 3D. In the brief time I had with it, the conversions looked really impressive; similar in quality to the same feature on Vision Pro.

YouTube is another app Google has updated to take full advantage of Android XR. In addition to watching regular flatscreen content on a large, curved display, you can also watch the platform’s existing library of 180, 360, and 3D content. Not all of it is super high quality, but it’s nice that it’s not being forgotten—and will surely be added to as more headsets are able to view this kind of media.

Google also showed me a YouTube video that was originally shot in 2D but automatically converted to 3D to be viewed on the headset. It looked pretty good, seemingly similar in quality to the Google Photos 3D conversion tech. It wasn’t made clear whether this is something that YouTube creators would need to opt-in to have generated, or something YouTube would just do automatically. I’m sure there’s more details to come.

The Stand-out Advantage (for now)

Android XR and Project Moohan, both from a hardware and software standpoint, feel very much like a Google-fied version of what’s already on the market. But what it clearly does better than any other headset right now is conversational AI.

Google’s AI agent, Gemini (specifically the ‘Project Astra‘ variant) can be triggered right from the home screen. Not only can it hear you, but it can see what you see in both the real world and the virtual world—continuously. Its ongoing perception of what you’re saying and what you’re seeing makes it feel smarter, better integrated, and more conversational than the AI agents on contemporary headsets.

Yes, Vision Pro has Siri, but Siri can only hear you and is mostly focused on single-tasks rather than an ongoing conversation.

And Quest has an experimental Meta AI agent that can hear you and see what you’re seeing—but only the real world. It has no sense of what virtual content is in front of you, which creates a weird disconnect. Meta says this will change eventually, but for now that’s how it works. And in order to ‘see’ things, you have to ask it a question about your environment and then stand still while it makes a ‘shutter’ sound, then starts thinking about that image.

Gemini, on the other hand, gets something closer to a low framerate video feed of what you’re seeing in both the real and virtual worlds; which means no awkward pauses to make sure you’re looking directly at the thing you asked about as a single picture is taken.

Gemini on Android XR also has a memory about it, which gives it a boost when it comes to contextual understanding. Google says it has a rolling 10-minute memory and retains “key details of past conversations,” which means you can refer not only to things you talked about recently, but also things you saw.

I was shown what is by now becoming a common AI demo: you’re in a room filled with stuff and you can ask questions about it. I tried to trip the system up with a few sly questions, and was impressed at its ability to avoid the diversions.

I used Gemini on Android XR to ask it to translate sign written in Spanish into English. It quickly gave me a quick translation. Then I asked it to translate another nearby sign into French—knowing full well that this sign was already in French. Gemini had no problem with this, and correctly noted, “this sign is already in French, it says [xyz],” and it even said the French words in a French accent.

I moved on to asking about some other objects in the room, and after it had been a few minutes since asking about the signs, I asked it “what did that sign say earlier?” It knew what I was talking about and read the French sign aloud. Then I said “what about the one before that?”….

A few years ago this question—”what about the one before that?”—would have been a wildly challenging question for any AI system (and it still is for many). Answering it correctly requires multiple levels of context from our conversation up to that point, and an understanding of how the thing I had just asked about relates to another thing we had talked about previously.

But it knew exactly what I meant, and quickly read the Spanish sign back to me. Impressive.

Gemini on Android XR can also do more than just answer general questions. It remains to be seen how deep this will be at launch, but Google showed me a few ways that Gemini can actually control the headset.

For one, asking it to “take me to the Eiffel tower,” pulls up an immersive Google Maps view so I can see it in 3D. And since it can see virtual content as well as real, I can continue having a fairly natural conversation, with questions like “how tall is it?” or “when was it built?”

Gemini can also fetch specific YouTube videos that it thinks are the right answer to your query. So saying something like “show a video of the view from the ground,” while looking at the virtual Eiffel tower, will pop up a YouTube video to show what you asked for.

Ostensibly Gemini on Android XR should also be able to do the usual assistant stuff that most phone AI can do (ie: send text messages, compose an email, set reminders), but it will be interesting to see how deep it will go with XR-specific capabilities.

Gemini on Android XR feels like the best version of an AI agent on a headset yet (including what Meta has right now on their Ray-Ban smartglasses) but Apple and Meta are undoubtedly working toward similar capabilities. How long Google can maintain the lead here remains to be seen.

Gemini on Project Moohan feels like a nice value-add when using the headset for spatial productivity purposes, but its true destiny probably lies on smaller, everyday wearable smartglasses, which I also got to try… but more on that in another article.

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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."
  • tmikaeld

    Any thought on the weight compared to Quest 3 and Vision Pro?

    • Mandub

      "Moohan is significantly lighter than the Vision Pro" – 9to5google

      • Ranger Kayla

        AVP is 33% heavier up-front vs Quest 3. I bet this new headset is significantly heavier up-front vs Quest 3. I for one will never consider buying a headset that's not lighter than my Quest 3. Smaller FOV and heavier? No thanks.

  • xyzs

    Oled screens, high definition screens, weight?

    • Andrey

      This. Mentioning everything else but forgetting to mention one of the most important things is pretty weird. There is only one reason I can see why it wasn't mentioned – if it's has LCD screen(s) and author didn't want to point out at this huge disadvantage for a, probably, pricy headset (I doubt that it will cost less than 1000$ just because it's from Samsung).

    • TheAK

      Jarring that the thing you'll be staring at 100% of the time is not mentioned in any detail at all apart from FoV.
      Step up your game RoadToVr…

      • philingreat

        If Samsung doesn't give these specs, RoadtoVR can't report on it

        • TheAK

          Obviously, but it doesn't take a genius to make an assessment whether the screen is OLED or not.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            TL;DR: It's not trivial to distinguish an OLED display from modern Samsung quantum dot LED backlit LCD with lots of dimming zones that offer comparable contrast, but just from knowing what displays are even available and who's HMD this is, it will very likely use 4K eMagin microOLED displays paired with pancake lenses.

            Samsung said the display was state-of-the-art and very high resolution, and the only type of display we have seen with HMDs allowing for 3K+ resolutions are microOLED displays that so far have always been paired with pancakes in HMDs. It also doesn't take a genius to make that assessment just based on Samsung's own comments, you don't even need to see the device.

            The job of journalists is to report facts, and with no specs given and not even clear if this version of the headset used the final displays, guessing was somewhat inappropriate. Esp. considering that this was a hands-on to get feedback on how the AndroidXR HMD targeting professional users and prices will be used in combination with the Gemini AI, for which it is enough to know that the displays were apparently sufficient. The focus on specs sort of misses the point similar to people comparing only Teraflops on consoles or GigaHertz on CPUs to rate them, which have limited practical consequences.

            If you still want specs where none were given, add that Samsung acquired eMagin in 2023. eMagin stated that this would give them the resources to bring their display technology to mass production, after showing a 4K microOLED display (labeled Steamboat) at DisplayWeek 2022. Compared to the Sony microOLEDs in AVP and the BOE microOLEDs in Bigscreen Beyond, eMagin's 2022 microOLED didn't use white OLEDs for the backlight with fixed RGB filters to create colored pixels , but R, G and B OLEDs directly placed on the substrate instead.

            So just from this being a high end Samsung HMD first shown in late 2024 one could deduce that it will very likely have 4K microOLED displays with a new type of light source that is significantly more power efficient than white OLEDs requiring color filters that remove 2/3rd of the light before it even enters the lens. Which means requiring less cooling and smaller batteries, allowing for lighter HMDs.

            And when you finally add that there are only a few companies producing microOLED displays, with former Panasonic subsidiary Shiftall just last months showing their MeganeX superlight 8K with 3552*3840 displays, there is a slight chance that this is a same display, though with Panasonic showing a number of experimental HMDs over the years, they might be one of the companies creating microOLED displays themselves. Everything up to the Samsung/eMagin 4K microOLEDs using RGB OLED is pretty safe, the resolution/Shiftall connection speculative.

            And the most important info is that the displays apparently did their job well, matching the requirements for the uses cases shown. Regardless of pixel count or used technology.

  • MosBen

    As someone said in the other post, Google's track record of abandoning projects is established well enough now that I'm not going to buy a first-generation product. I'm going to give them some time to prove that they're committed to this product stack as well as seeing if more options for HMDs become available. I'd prefer something with a bit better field of view

    • Stephen Bard

      The narrow FOVs of the Vision Pro were completely unacceptable to me, so even narrower FOVs and dim display edges on this headset are a complete non-starter.

      • MosBen

        As with lots of things, a great deal hinges on price. The Vision Pro is a pretty neat piece of tech, but at $3,500 it's just not a good value for just about anyone. If this headset comes in competitive with the Quest 3 on price, then that's a dramatically different story. I still probably wouldn't buy one because, as I said, I need Google to show me that they're actually committed to this branch of the business before I drop any money on it. But it'd be hard to say that it wasn't a good value in the $600 price range. I'm not saying that we should expect it to have that price, I'm just saying that what is or isn't acceptable in terms of hardware capabilities will depend on price.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          It will very likely pack more powerful and expensive tech than Quest 3, while being sold in much smaller numbers by a company that actually makes money from selling hardware unlike Meta. Estimates for the price were north of the USD 1500 launch price of Quest Pro, and high end professional prices are the sole reason why they even bother now. Things are still in motion though, with recent rumors having Apple target a USD 2000 Vision (Not) Pro for 2025.

          In general Meta's price policy only makes sense for Meta. They need a large user base before AVP and AndroidXR reach high end smartphone prices that consumers might accept. Given that Meta sold around 25mn headsets and gathered 10mn active users during the decade following the Oculus acquisition, Google with billions of users and Samsung selling hundreds of millions of phones each year don't seem to be in a rush to enter a ruinous price war. If Samsung's price policy imitating high end iPhones has taught us anything, it's that people are willing to pay a lot of money for mobile devices, and Samsung is absolutely willing to take a lot of money for them.

          • Dragon Marble

            I think Sony and Apple have already proven that trying to make a profit on hardware is a bad idea. Headsets are different from clothes I wear or paintings I hang on the wall. They need software to realize any value. The business model for software development is selling cheap copies to a large number of users. That means subsidized hardware is a must to start a new platform

            Don't bring up the example of the expensive iPhones. That's different. A phones' killer feature is being mobile. That's why Meta Ray-Ban glasses can be a hit with no subsidy and rudimental capabilities.

            Headsets are cumbersome to wear. You need something substantial to bring people over the hurdle. Having floating screens running existing 2D apps is not enough. People seem to forget that the virtual monitors are not just "floating in the air"; you are carrying them on your face.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            I think Sony and Apple have already proven that trying to make a profit on hardware is a bad idea.

            That's a bizarre statement with Apple becoming the first trillion dollar company by selling iPhones with ~40% margin, currently again the most valuable company before Nvidia. And creating a new platform, VR or not, doesn't automatically require selling hardware at loss. Nintendo never sold hardware at a loss. Sony stopped selling at a loss after PS3. Apple never did. And thousands of failed early 2000s startups proved that selling at loss isn't a valid business strategy.

            Meta selling hardware at cost/loss isn't the norm, is the absolute exception. They don't need to make their money back. According to Wikipedia, 97.8% of Meta's revenue comes from advertising. Suggesting selling VR hardware like Meta implies either drinking too much Meta Kool-Aid or being blinded by self-interest driven wishful thinking (ponies/cheap headsets for all). Meta is making a decades long bet for XR dominance it can only afford because it's also a trillion dollar company with yearly revenue/profits matching the GDP of states. Few can afford this game, and Meta only plays because it needs to guard against Google/Apple transitioning billions of users to AndroidXR/visionOS.

            Apple already has the users and doesn't need to buy them with subsidized hardware. So no, Sony and Apple have not proven that trying to make a profit on hardware is a bad idea. Quite the opposite.

          • Dragon Marble

            You are bringing up the phone example despite my preemptive strike. I explained why the phones are fundamentally different from XR hardware. Phones never faced the chicken-egg problem. They are like cars. Even before the internet existed, you needed a phone to stay connected.

            VR headsets, on the other hand, promise access to a digital world yet to be built. And that world has to be built by the masses and not just one or two giant companies (they can only provide the hardware). But no one will make light bulbs without electricity. Someone has to invest in the infrastructure.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            TL;DR: "VR is not special. It is not a beautiful and unique kind of business. It is the same type of clumsy consumer electronics as everything else. It's all part of the same future e-trash heap. It's all singing, all dancing crap of the world." – not Chuck Palahniuk

            I assumed you were referring to people pointing out that others are willing to pay USD 1000 and more for a phone as justification why expensive headsets would still find enough customers. Not that it matters, because if your idea is that phones should never be used as examples in a discussion about companies successfully selling XR hardware, we will never be able to mention Apple or Google or Samsung or Sony anyway, as all of them sell phones with hefty margins, with more success than HMDs. And honestly I can't really be bothered with your preemptive strike when your whole argument is that phones don't count because their killer feature is being mobile.

            Most XR HMDs are consumer electronics. Like DVD players. Or TVs. Or laptops, smartwatches, game consoles. Or phones. People pay a certain price because they provide a use, be it practical or entertainment, and use them for certain amounts of times according to their needs. And just like with cars and mobile phones, it takes a lot of time for them to become accepted by a larger audience.

            Cars didn't start with Ford's Model T, phones neither with Nokia's 3310 nor the iPhone. They started decades earlier with more expensive and less usable models that only a few with a specific need bothered to buy. Just like VR HMDs that were used by a few thousands from the 90s till about 2012, then over the next ten years growing to about 10mn who saw enough benefit to deal with lacking comfort, low resolution, short battery life, limited use cases, way less software than for consoles or PCs and more. Only about 800 times as many humans still need to be convinced. Headsets get lighter and cheaper and more useful, and once they'll offer the same apps that people now spend hours with every day, more people will be willing to use them.

            None of that is new. None of that is special. You are trying to make up special conditions to justify VR business somehow working by different rules. Which it doesn't. It's business as usual. There is always a chicken and egg problem for some time, with numerous ways to get around it. Waiting for the tech to mature just through general progress of for example electronics is the most common.

            Meta had a ten year head start and never became a thread to Apple or Google, because they launched when the tech wasn't really ready, leading to low user acceptance. A new company finding a proper use case a lot of people care about with an XR HMD using todays tech and integrated into Google with AndroidXR could overtake Meta in active user base size in only a few years. Meta tried to force a new medium into existence, after first trying to break the Android/iOS duopoly with free mobile services in India etc. (spending billions and failing). That's the only part were VR differs from phones. Or cars. And being extra early and spending more billions so far didn't really pay off for Meta, with no guarantee that it ever will.

            The only consumer electronics device that didn't literally take decades to see widespread adaptions were DVD players that were in 80% of all (US) households after only nine years. But they again they were largely based on CD players that took a lot longer for that. And it didn't require to bribe people by subsidizing them, they simply became useful, usable and cheap enough over time.

          • Dragon Marble

            You are not reading I am writing. VR is special. No one questions why you would need a mobile phone or car before those things got better. VR faces unique challenges because it has tremendous potential but is not essential. You need a system shock to jolt people out of the 2D complacency.

          • Bram

            good point and i agree. To get to mass adoption (read 1billion+ users) a technology needs to have sufficient essential benefits else it will stay on the level of specific usecases. Great new technology doesn't see mass adaption just because it exists. For a lot of things people want to do on the Internet, there's no need for the immersion factor that VR supplies on top of the existing media like smartphones, tablets and tv's. In the 1980's people thought that in the future video calling would replace most existing phonecalls once technically possible and available to the masses. Now, it's free for anybody with an Internet connection and a simple device, still most phone calls remain ordinary audio calls. This is just an example. Do most people browse facebook and instagram on their huge tv set, because that is also possible or in comparison on their tiny smartphone screen? Well, we know the answer. And so I don't see xr headsets replacing smartphone usage for the majority anytime soon just because it is adding an immersion factor on top of what we can already do. Also, the time that people have to adopt an extra new device is an important factor. For most people that time is simply not there! So it can only be adapted if an xr headset will be used instead of using existing devices present today in the average household.
            I have no doubt a vr headset like the Quest line-up can see adaption on the level of a gaming console within the next 10 years, reaching 50-100 million users. But that's still far from the mass adaption Meta and other companies are intending to reach.

          • Dragon Marble

            You are right. That's why the problem with selling a PSVR2 at $500 is simply that it does not provide that much value (yet) for most consumers. Same with Vision Pro. So Meta selling headsets cheap is not predatary pricing.

            If Meta is a predator, then Google is just a scavenger waiting for the lion to make a kill. Why do you think they have controllers planned for the Samsung headset? It's for the game library Meta have subsidized over the years.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            XR headsets won't replace phones because of extra emersion, but because they can be always on, providing information, you don't need to hold them with one hand, so can do all the tasks you'd otherwise do while using them, and you don't need to look down on a tiny screen, instead the huge display is right in front of you and can be make as transparent as you need.

            All these are very clear benefits. There is a reason why you get fined for texting while driving, smartphones take a lot more effort and attention to use than a HUD in your glasses would. Just like phones are only used for gaming a small fraction of the time, XR HMDs will be used only a fraction of time in full immersive mode. Of course this won't happen with a Quest 3/4/5/6. The closest to the concept we saw are Meta's Orion XR glasses they will try to turn into an actual product by 2030 at a "phone to laptop price", so realistically we are talking about at least ten years before XR HMDs are small and cheap enough to replace smartphones.

          • Dragon Marble

            That may be the future of XR, but it's not what excites me. For me it's all about the 3 dimensional worlds it takes me to. I don't care if the headsets are 1000 grams heavy. If convenience was what I was looking for, I would've stayed on the couch and played flat games. That's true for most early adopters. I woul hate it if the only way XR goes mainstream is by abandoning early enthusiasts.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            That may not excite you, but might provide the required benefit needed to turn XR into a mass market product, which will not happen with gaming focussed VR HMDs. So maybe this is the misunderstanding. No, there is no need to subsidize XR glasses that over time will become useful and cheap enough for people to buy them on their own. But yes, there is need to subsidize standalone gaming VR HMDs right now, because to make them usable a lot of expensive tech is required, most gamers obviously don't care and those that buy Quest are very sensitive to price.

            The consequence isn't that everybody will start to act like Meta though. Those who started down that lane all switched to go for high end productivity HMDs they hope will slowly and in many steps move towards that not so near future mainstream XR market. Only Meta will continue to push the VR gaming focused Quest at high cost.

            I understand that this is frustrating for those seeing VR mostly as a gaming medium. One cause for misunderstandings will be that I always saw gaming as an accidental side function of VR that distracts from the IMHO more interesting things XR would allow, esp. in the future.

          • Dragon Marble

            It's not just about games. Of course, the glass form facor will eventually solve every problem. But we are talking about between now and then. Meta's approach is viable; Sony and Apple's aren't. Sony seems to have learned the lesson. Let's see what Apple does.

            There's value from XR for consumers today. But you have to make it happen the way Meta does — TODAY.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Meta's margin on Quest selling at cost is 0%.

            Based on teardowns I still expect PSVR2 to cost (less than) USD 250 to produce, putting the margin on launch to ~55% at USD 550 and now ~30% at USD 350.

            AVP build cost were estimated to be USD 1400-1800, so ~50%-60% margin, with 40% being typical for iPhones. As AVP was always constrained to 450K units per year by Sony only being able to produce 900K microOLED displays (in facilities capable to fabricate 100K-200K per quarter, apparently involving some math voodoo), the unusually high margin on AVP may actually have been a price counter measure to not let demand outstrip supply, which may have worked too well. At Apple's usual 40%, AVP would cost USD ~2350-3000.

          • Advanced Design

            It is difficult to create a comfortable virtual reality world with current technology.

          • Bram

            i agree a future advanced version of Orion XR has likely a bit more potential to see mass adaption than the future quests, still i think you're still looking to this topic to much through the eyes of an enthusiast. There are so plenty of examples in the last few decades of the majority of people not adapting great new technology that in the past we were convinced it was going to conquer the world once matured and ready to use. For example, you mention the practical side, well we would guess that now speech recognition has become close to perfect, most people would talk to their phone instead of typing on a tiny part of the screen with all the mistakes that come with that… but then they don't! The vast majority of people are still typing on that tiny litte part of a smartphone screen. No mass adaption there.
            Another example:
            in the late 1990's a superior digital audio recording format was developed that was way better than the format on cd's, it was called DSD (direct stream digital) and ready to conquer the world and make anyone enjoy even better musical audio than ever before. Well suddeny there were all these downloadable mp3's on the internet and it turned out, most people didn't go for the better audio format, but chose an even worse format than cd quality, the mp3 format. And not only because it was so easy to download and acquire, most people didn't care so much about listening to high quality audio. Not only the general used audio format downgraded because of that, also most people nowadays listening though crappy small bluetooth speakers…cause they find them good enough.
            Long story but the list goes on. Better or in theory more practical technology doesn't automatically mean mass adaption. For the masses (exluding us enthusiasts) there must be key features that people experience as essential to adapt a new type of device. I don't see most people easily put on glasses, just because that results in bigger screens in front of their eyes. They could also already do it now with those xreal xr glasses, that are relatively affordable, but not a big succes so far as well.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            There will never be anything with 100% adoption, but you might be underestimating what actually useful tech can do. We are now at about 6.7bn mobile phone "contracts", which isn't the same as users due to people with several devices, use in autonomous applications etc. By the end of this decade, there will be more active "phones" than humans on the planet, and there are already a lot of things you simply can't do or access without a smartphone, quickly getting more and causing real problems for some elderly people that never joined the masses. Smartphones have become essentials in many developing countries, often the only communication and media device available, with local charging businesses running on generators or solar popping up in villages that have mobile internet, but no power lines. And it only took a few years.

            I remember the introduction of SACD/Super Audio CD that used DSD for encoding. Highly praised by audiophiles, ignored by pretty much everyone else, because you needed high quality headphones and basically the hearing capabilities of either a young person or a trained musician to notice the difference to a regular CD. It was no doubt an improvement, but one with limited benefits on top of an already good solution.

            MP3 on the other hand offered significant improvements by reducing file sizes to a small fraction of the original, allowing to store hundreds of songs on a single CD-R, or transferring them over still slow network connections, with the convenience of Napster outweighing all disadvantages. MP3 had other benefits like a freely available encoder from Fraunhofer making it usable for anyone with a computer. And after a while esp. teens were so used to the sound of 128kbit MP3 that they started preferring the slightly muffled sound over CDs in blind audio tests.

            DSD offered none of that, so this is less about the better technology not being adapted, but the "better" part being in quality few even considered a problem, while what people wanted was "better" in convenience. By now quality has actually won with few people realizing. When the iTunes store launched in 2003, Apple used the much improved AAC codec with 256kbit/sec at 24bit 48kHz with tracks digitized from 48bit master tapes, providing a way better signal than uncompressed CDs at 16bit 44.1KHz.

            And a few years later they added their own lossless ALAC lossless that, similar to FLAC, reduces the data by about 50% compared to raw PCM, and is offered on the store with up to 24bit/192kHz. So you can now pick between convenience and extremely high quality, with fast internet connections making the latter as usable as MP3 a quarter of a century ago.

            So I still believe that when all the right conditions are met, most people will happily embrace new technology to ease their life. SACD just didn't offer enough perceived benefit and convenience, which is also the problem of the currently available VR headsets. But that doesn't mean that things won't change once there are better options that meet the needs of many people. And you might want to give speech recognition another try, because with LLMs like in ChatGPT these have become way better at understanding text because they no longer just go by often ambiguous sound, like the recognition in most phones, but instead use their knowledge about language and the probability of certain words following others for much, much improved results, now often close to perfect.

          • Advanced Design

            Do I have to control him like a conductor or a commander? This is so unnatural.

          • Olle

            I agree with your guys points. I bought a quest2 last year after having been hyped about vr ever since trying rift dk2 in 2013-14. But now I think meta is making a huge mistake betting on this. I have used my quest2 maybe 4 times. It’s just not fun. And it’s heavy and there are no apps/games that excites me. Big disappointment, and I don’t see how they could turn this around in the next decade. It simply isn’t good enough yet hardware- or software-wise. My vr hype level has plummeted and the Samsung headset does nothing to remedy that.

          • Advanced Design

            I agree with you. The PC VR is too bulky, too many cables, and the GPU of the mobile device is too poor. I think most people's needs are limited to watching VR videos at the moment.Perhaps the public needs a head-mounted VR display for mobile phones or tablets at present.I don't think mobile VR devices will be as natural as mobile phones in another decade.More than once, I have seen the idea that the needs of VR will grow out of the ground。As for vision pro, we use the camera to simulate a big monitor in a small monitor, which is crazy.

    • Raphael

      Yes, give them time to abandon it. Google and Microsoft both have a proven track record of product abandonment. Don't expect many apps for it either.

  • Derek Kent

    Imagine buying a google based product.

    • brandon9271

      You mean like all the millions of phones and smart watches that people use daily?

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        "You mean like all the millions billions of phones …" FTFY

    • XRC

      Yes these Google Pixel phones have been terrible. I started with Pixel XL and years later have the latest model after updating every two years. Perhaps I should stop buying them…

    • Arno van Wingerde

      Well, you might call it an Android based product… there are "several" of those out in the world, see @christianschildwaechter:disqus

  • guest

    Worst parts of all. Apple's pinch and eye-tracking and probably similar cost for all that. Another company that wants to force ads in your face. Just imagine YouTube dead-stopping for ads! AI second-guessing everthing you say and (now) do in your own home. An app store that treats both its developers and users like criminals, always using security as an excuse to belittle them both.

    • Anonymous

      How the heck do you reach this conclusion reading this? Even Meta dared not try it so neither will Google.

      • guest

        Yes, Meta does not dead-stop Reels and TikTok does not dead-stop anyones videos, they just inject ads between videos and you are not forced to watch them like medicine commercials on TV. What makes you think YouTube is going to change there ways on headsets???

  • Andrey

    So… After years of not doing literally anything, when even a company like Apple was able to develop, release and fail with it's "spatial computer", Google finally decided to join the race they've adandoned long time ago. And with Samsung as their first partner – was their last headset Odyssey+ for WMR from 2018?

    After reading the article I still can't see why someone will buy it or even will think about buying it. It's clearly not for productivity (because it was never mentioned that screens are so clear that, f.e. text is very readable or that passthrough quality is outstanding, etc.). It's not for gaming either because they never showed controllers and, more importantly, they never showed any games developed specifically for it or, at the very least, didn't even make any promises regarding that. It seems that they literally went the same route as Apple and Sony – passive content consumption as a "raison d’être" of this device and leaving creation of named content to dozens – if not hundreds – of thousands AR/VR/MR/XR developers all over the world who eager to port their apps to a new small platform without any substantial audience behind it!

    And it's AI capabilities… Well, if it was purely AR headset in the form-factor of see-through glasses that doesn't look like a complete %$#@, then it would be cool to be able to translate foreign languages on the go in the corresponding foreign country when you travel. But this headset is just as bulky as any other alternative, it probably won't work for more than 2 hours, so any of it's features will be 99% tied to user's home. I am very sorry for Google, but there are not much foreign language signs to translate in my apartment, so I still can't see why I would want to buy this thing, especially when the price will turn out to be not so friendly like it's with Quest 3/3S.

    TL:DR – it's just another attempt from Google that will most certainly flop just like Apple already did; it's main goal is to try and take a part of the market where Meta has an almost complete monopoly, but in the end Google will give up and will just let Meta officially include Play Market in the MetaOS with sharing profits from it.

    • Michael Speth

      "It seems that they literally went the same route as Apple and Sony – passive content consumption "

      Wrong. Sony PSVR2 – 100% gaming focused:

      * Revolutionized Gaming Controllers via Adaptive Triggers (which they integrated into their PS5 console controllers)
      * OLED – maintained what it is to be REAL VR
      * Headset Haptics – again revolutionatry feature that no other HMD has
      * Eye Trackers – Not only used for gaming but REQUIRED to reduce GPU processing to ensure future proofing – Dynamic Foveated Rending is a game changer
      * Halo Headstrap – A superior design to the retarded headband that comes stock on all Meta Garbage Headsets
      * Now getting Hand Tracking – yes late in the game but at least they added it

      There are several 1st party VR games Sony has released with the latest "My First Gran Turismo" just 2 weeks ago. No need to be so wrong about Sony, I understand you hate them and all but you should at least get your facts correct. Hate Sony for reality not what you make up in your mind.

      • Ranger Kayla

        Hilarious. Enjoy your tethered outdated Fresnel lenses, blurry images, pitiful overpriced game selection. Quest 3 head strap can be upgraded with an inexpensive aftermarket halo strap and then it become far more comfortable vs PSVR2. You can use wi-fi or cable to play Steam Games with a laptop or PC. Yes, this would up the overall cost. A decent PCVR set up will destroy PSVR2. Games? You cannot even play PSVR1 games on your PSVR2. No wonder PSVR2 sales have tanked. Are they still selling headsets? Quest 3 is a far better headset vs PSVR2. Even without a laptop/PC. I don't hate Sony. Maybe they will design a wireless headset to compete with Meta. Right now they have nothing to offer. I'd prefer to buy from Sony vs Meta. If and when they catch up.

      • Ranger Kayla

        Hilarious. Enjoy your tethered headset with it's outdated gigantic Fresnel lenses, blurry images, pitiful overpriced game selection. Quest 3 head strap can be upgraded with an inexpensive aftermarket halo strap and then it becomes far more comfortable vs PSVR2. You can use wi-fi or cable to play Steam Games with a laptop or PC. Yes, this would up the overall cost. A decent PCVR set up will destroy PSVR2. Games? You cannot even play PSVR1 games on your PSVR2. No wonder PSVR2 sales have tanked. Are they still selling headsets? Quest 3 is a far better headset vs PSVR2. Even without a laptop/PC. I don't hate Sony. Maybe they will design a wireless headset to compete with Meta. Right now they have nothing to offer. I'd prefer to buy from Sony vs Meta. If and when they catch up.

        • Michael Speth

          Quest 3S has what lenses? Samsung and even the latest $1k HTC mobile headset all have fresnel. You really don't understand technology nor understand that Fresnel are good lenses.

          You get a shit LCD screen on Quest3. Why? Because Meta doesn't want to lose 10 billion a month versus 2 or 3 billion they are currently using. That is why they stuck you with shit LCD instead of the superior micro-oled like Apple did

          You meta fanbois are willfully ignorant.

          Connecting your Quest to a PC is streaming. No direct connection unlike HTC's new HMD but it also costs $1k. Meta won't implement a direct connection bc meta wants to have authority over what you see.

          You have signed up for enslavement.

          • FRISH

            Uh meta have managed to sell more units than Apple so are doing something right, and while I agree with meta wanting to push their own ecosystem, the same applies to Sony. Except Meta is probably more likely to allow access to their library for future headsets.

          • Michael Speth

            Meta loses billions per month. They are doing it wrong obviously because the price of the headset is less than the actual value of it's parts. Hence why meta loses billions. People simply wouldn't buy meta garbage if it was priced at a profit like HTC does.

          • FRISH

            So a similar strategy that console makers use for their hardware… Meta isn’t my favourite company, but honestly without them VR probably would have collapsed. Anyway, I like my headset, you’re free to like yours.

          • Michael Speth

            No. Console makers don’t lose BILLIONS per month on selling consoles. Meta is unique and has been losing BILLIONS per month every year. Meta hardware is literal garbage.

        • Arno van Wingerde

          Hm… proud owner of a Quest3, currently also testing a PSVR2+PS5pro. Yes: ##*!@ cable, clumsy audio, a miniscule sweet spot and hazy edges, few games…
          But the PS5 destroys the Quest3 in terms of CPU/GPU power and the OLED screen, as well as the better haptics makes the games optimised for this combo more immersive than anything on the Quest 3. I expect to play e.g. Puzzling Places on the Quest 3, with better sharpness and less hassle. OTOH No man's Sky, GT7, Evil Resident Village, Horizon: CotM might make it worthwhile for me to keep that combo as well.
          PCVR can be better, but in practice keeping that running well involves minor amounts of black magic and justling with endless mods on Skyrim etc. … that is a hobby by itself but one I do not care for.
          The Foveated rendering and the fixed hardware that game designers can count on allow for the console to punch above its weight, with game designers claiming the PS5 to get to 3080 levels. The pro might achieve 4080 levels on a good day. Obviously the 4090 and upcoming 5080 and above beat any PS5 Pro console… but those cards cost double the price of the console and then endless amounts of fiddling.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Keeping a PC running isn't all that horrible in most cases. The two situations where things can drift quickly into black magic is a) fixing issues caused by things seemingly breaking for random, non-obvious reasons and b) optimizing performance. These can require a lot of time and tranquilizers.

            It's similar to 3D printers that for years were considered more a hobby than a tool. If you simply accepted whatever they produced, they usually worked fine, but if you tried to venture into larger prints taking a lot of time, different materials, objects requiring precision, or simply wanted to get rid of artifacts that increased over time, you were looking at a lot of required try-and-error tinkering. The last few years 3D printers saw huge improvements with fast AND good AND userfriendly AND affordable devices, while previously you would only get one or at best two of these attributes.

            Technically the PS5 is a PC with a non-Windows OS and streamlined interface, so with the right software a fast AND good AND user friendly AND affordable option is now also available for VR. I'm still hoping that what Valve did for PC based gaming usability with the Steam Deck will rub of on PCVR, so we'll see game specific tuning with the proper configurations provided by Valve or the community instead of everyone figuring it out themselves.

            Microsoft is also said to be working on making Windows more user friendly for gaming, targeting an Xbox like experience to get PC users to subscribe to Game Pass, but so far the sole successful approach was Valve ditching Windows and going with highly configurable Linux to achieve a unified and user friendly interface for gaming, similar to what consoles offer.

    • Arno van Wingerde

      Ah, it might fail in the end, "killed by Google". OTOH, it has Android with its vast library 2D games behind it… let's see how the hardware is and the software plays out. But you're right, I will not be camping at the entry of a shop on the day this thing comes out!

  • Andrew Jakobs

    tethered battery pack

    Ah, shame, that's a nogo for me. With the rigid strap they could have put a batterypack on the back of the strap, or better yet have it be hotswappable.

    • Arno van Wingerde

      I am very happy with the BoBoVR strap with swappable batteries, however, a tethered battery pack does not seem a major problem for me: if necessary, I guess you could roll up the cable and attach the battery pack to the phone, even though that is less convenient. I think that strapping the pack to my belt or so and carefully guiding the cable would be OK.

      • Andrew Jakobs

        From my own experience of a batterypack on the belt/pocket tethered to the headset with the wirelessmodule of my HTC Vive Pro, I can say it is annoying, and it adds extra time to putting your headset/gear on/off. Also with certain movements the pack jumps from you belt or out of your pocket, the cable gets tangled sometimes with you arms (yes, you can fix that with clips or running it inside your shirt, but that all adds to the time before you can start playing).
        the bobovr headstrap is a decent headstrap and IMHO, especially the hotswappable battery, should come standard with any headset.

    • Ranger Kayla

      I'd consider a tethered battery pack only if the headset weighed significantly less up-front vs Quest 3 (AVP is 33% heavier up-front). This new headset weighs less vs AVP and most likely, significantly more vs Quest 3.

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    I hope we'll one day see prototypes from 2023-02, when Samsung and Google announced the headset a few months before Apple showed AVP, still targeting a release in early 2024. I'd expect the hardware to be very similar except for cosmetic changes, but the software/UI to be vastly different.

    It would be interesting to see if it was mostly similar to the Quest UI, or if Google had come up with unique approaches that were lost again while AVP-fying it. And how well they already integrated 2D Android apps. The only other thing I'm wondering about is how much ergonomics improved compared to the prototype, after Apple of all people managed to screw up comfort.

    I'd also like to see how people will use the AI in five years. AI can be a powerful tool, but suffers from similar WOW effects as early VR that turned out to be less applicable in daily use. I appreciate Google Lens translating the occasional Chinese manual, but could save a lot more time if someone did my chores for me. I quickly stopped using voice assistants like Alexa because I'm good enough at looking up things myself.

    Gemini recognizing both real and virtual world sounds neat, but I rarely have need for my environment to be explained. Maybe while driving, but then I'd prefer the car to drive itself instead of telling me where to go, freeing me for other things. AI voice assistants feel like hiring a maid that only works over the phone: interesting at first, but unable to do any of the time consuming physical tasks I'd love to delegate, helping mostly where I don't need help.

  • I watch with a deep curiosity ….

    []^ )

  • Question on everyone's mind (atleast mine) is how do the displays and visuals compare to Vision Pro and Quest 3?

  • Somerandomindividual

    To not mention screens in a VR headset is a travesty in VR journalism, wtf RoadtoVR

    • philingreat

      If Samsung doesn't give these specs, RoadtoVR can't write about it

  • Amazing write-up, as usual. Very detailed, thanks for sharing it!

    • Arno van Wingerde

      I am happy that ben wrote it as well. But detailed is the opposite: no specs or screen type, no price, weight, … no software… we can guess now that the product is meant for a maximum of two eyes at the same time, but that's about it ….

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        Samsung showing the headset wasn't a presentation or the official introduction of Moohan, it was a hands-on with what is not the final version for them to get feedback. They most likely invited XR journalists both for their experience and to have them report some first impression, but were deliberately stingy with details and at least didn't allow any pictures to be taken. There may have been more restrictions on what was allowed to be reported. Most likely because a lot of the details aren't final and much of the device and software will get a lot more polishing based on the feedback they now received.

        And the main focus seems to have been on Gemini integrated with Google services. So all the resolution/FoV/display type/weight questions now asked are kind of missing the point. This wasn't a hardware presentation with actually tied down specs, instead it was a demonstration of how the final device will be used.

  • Jose Ferrer

    Despite Virtual Desktop will allow to enjoy PCVR games, and whatever 3K or 4K resolution they put in the panels, the true bottleneck for PCVR games will be the maximun decoding bandwidth of the XR2+ Gen2 chip, which would be very similar to the XR2 Gen2 chip (200Mbps for H265).

    So PCVR will not look much better than in Quest3 even if the samsung device has higher resolution.

    I doubt Samsung will allow wired DP Alt-Mode over USB-C like HTC Focus Vision does. But I would love it.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      You are very likely completely right about the decoding speed being the limiting factor. There is a theoretical, but technically already possible option to work around that though that I expect to play a role with making use of 3K or 4K streaming in the future.

      Despite a lot of gamers disliking it, technologies like smart upscaling and frame generation have become important tools to get to high resolutions and frame rates, which also improved over time. A big jump was DLSS 2/FSR 2 not only working on the current frame, but including temporal data from previous frames, which requires the game giving them motion vectors. VirtualDesktop already uses these with its SSW reprojection, which compared to Meta's ASW or Valve's Motion Smoothing runs on the Quest instead of the PC.

      So one way to fully utilize a 3K or 4K resolution even with limited decoding speed is sending a lower resolution frame plus the required motion vectors, which will then on the HMD itself be run through a DLSS2 like image restoration to recreate a much higher resolution image from the new frame plus data extracted from previous frames guided by motion vectors. All this has already been implemented on PC, what is missing is someone turning it into a dedicated PCVR streaming solution for standalone HMDs.

  • Ondrej

    Android and iOS are NOT computer OSes.
    They are too limited and too restricting (including ToS) for serious work in many industries (including many artistic and IT ones).

    We were promised that XR would replace everything because it would be able to do anything classical computers could + more.
    Instead we are getting another GADGET that is trying to put a tablet on your face.

    That tollbooth obsession has turned this whole thing into a joke. They really think they are making a new "smartphone" ignoring how many laptops and PCs are still being are used every day, while taking your entire eyesight. What a delusion.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      What BS about Android and iOS not computer OSses, they aren't too limited or too restrictive. You're just a crappy developer if you can't create something for work in many industries. (Highend) Smartphones these days can be used as any regular PC, if somebody writes the app for it.

    • Advanced Design

      Google used to promote cardboard for a dollar. I don't think they themselves believe the myth that xr will replace everything.They are just afraid of losing the opportunity to sell their shovels.

  • I have become very, VERY accustomed to VR headsets having a rotating adjustable headstrap. Helps take it off and put it back on easier. The rigid, fixed strap on this looks terrible. The OS does look really nice though.