Oculus Files Patent for a Convertible HMD Powered by a PC or Phone

Image: Oculus

2018 is certainly going to be the year of wireless VR Headsets and Oculus is determined to remain at the forefront of this competition. During the Oculus Connect 4 event two months back, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the first standalone VR headset – Oculus Go, in addition to a range of other interesting announcements.

Although the developer version of Oculus Go is already out on the market, the consumer version will be released in early 2018 at a very attractive price-point of $199. However, it seems that the research wing of Oculus is busy with something even more innovative.

Oculus Patent Reveals a PC/Phone Powered Convertible HMD

As per the latest published patent filed back in 2016, Oculus is developing a convertible HMD that can be powered by a PC or a phone.

The patent application covers a head-mounted display that can receive “video input from a stationary computer in a first mode of operation and from a mobile computer in a second mode of operation, and to display images corresponding to the video input.”

Image: UploadVR

The patent images reveal the arrangement of powering devices like the phone being snapped at the back of your head where it can be wired to the HMD. It looks like having a separate powering unit for your HMD is in the plans for the coming year. Recently, Magic Leap also unveiled its ‘Magic Leap One‘ AR headset with a similar design pattern involving a separate processing unit.

Image: UploadVR

Note that this is just a patent at this point in time and doesn’t prove that Oculus has really started working on this yet. However, this certainly looks like a very interesting concept in the making.

In addition to the Oculus Go, the company is also working on a high-end VR headset under Project Santa Cruz which is expected to have features like inside-out tracking capabilities, head-mounted mobile processing, and 6DoF controllers.