Samsung’s Stand-Alone Odyssey Headset with Super Sharp Display

Image credit: Samsung

Samsung is feeling the squeeze. Google is encroaching on their mobile VR territory with the new and improved Daydream 2.0 platform that includes an awesome new tracking technology called WorldSense. Furthermore, Google’s new stand-alone headsets produced by HTC and Lenovo also move Daydream into the super convenient stand-alone headset territory. Perhaps to combat this threat while maintaining their mobile VR market share, Samsung is also producing a new stand-alone headset with an amazing display that could blow anything that Google is doing out of the water.

HTC’s stand alone Daydream 2.0. Image credit: HTC

Samsung McSammy Dog’s new stand-alone headset is code named Odyssey which harkens back to the homoerotic Greek tale of wanderlust. The Odyssey headset is still in early prototype form, so keep in mind, many aspects or components of this device are probably in flux. This means that when the Odyssey finally hits the market, it may be very different than it is now.

As of the now, the rumors suggest that this device is indeed a stand-alone headset. This is in contrast to the current approach that Samsung uses. Samsung’s virtual reality platform, the Gear VR, always uses a phone that works in tandem with a headset. The phone provides the display and processing power while the headset provides orientation sensors, controls, and the headset mechanism itself. Instead of this phone/headset assemblage, a stand-alone device is a self-contained mechanism. This is like the new Daydream headsets that HTC is producing.

Image credit: Samsung News

Stand Alone, Why?

For a variety of reasons, stand-alone headsets are much more convenient than devices like Google Cardboard or Gear VR. While smartly designed, these contraptions always require some set-up. In other words, to try out, or enjoy a virtual reality app, users must spend a few minutes fiddling around with apps while connecting their phone to a plastic headset. Depending on the phone and the headset, this can be easy, annoying, or difficult. Putting the pieces together in a self-contained whole skips this setup process. With a stand-alone VR headset, the virtual reality applications are always ready and waiting for consumers to jump into.

Bring it to the Table Baby!

While Samsung often loves to copy other company’s  design, software, and hardware, they appear to be following their own path in the virtual reality market. Where Google is focusing on innovating in terms of tracking (WorldSense), Samsung is focusing on display technology. As for the display tech that will be included, Samsung has been giving us hints all along.

One of the biggest hints, a trademark filing for the Odyssey. Image credit: Samsung

During the Society for Information Display 2017 convention, Sam-dog showed off some impressive display tech that may end up in the Odyssey headset. The most impressive display that was demonstrated is only 1.96 inches in diameter. Because of this small size, a virtual reality headset would have to use two of these – one per eye. The size of the display is most impressive when one considers the enormous amount of pixels that the lords of South Korea baked into the nearly two-inch glass wafer. On one each display sits 2,250 pixels per square inch. The total resolution clocks in at 3,840 x 2,160.

Image credit: Samsung

If used in a headset, this resolution would eliminate the dreaded screen door effect that currently plagues many low-resolution VR headsets. It would potentially be the sharpest display tech on earth. Considering the vast amount of pixels at hand, the Samsung Odyssey headset would have to have an enormously powerful GPU to output 3d visuals at this resolution. That said, downscaled apps running at the more common QHD resolutions could be used while GPU speed catches up. Even at QHD, such displays would provide much richer viewing experiences that would surpass the puny 2k displays that the top of the line VR headsets now offer.