Samsung’s leaked XR headset looks like a very cheap Apple Vision Pro

At Galaxy Unpacked in February 2023, Samsung announced it was teaming up with Google and Qualcomm to develop an XR headset – and if these leaks are accurate, we might have our first look at its efforts to date. Kind of.

Very little is known about Samsung’s latest XR effort, although it’s expected to be a standalone device rather than something powered by smartphones like the old Gear VR headsets. This new leaked prototype (assuming it’s real) gives us an insight into Samsung’s design philosophy, though according to the leaks it’s not a prototype in development. Instead, this was what Samsung was working on until it saw the Apple Vision Pro and decided to start over.

The leak was first posted by Chinese publication Vrtuoluo, but the article has been removed (via android authority). The only way to view the original is via the Way Back machine who archived the original. The images it posted look a lot like a typical VR headset — like the Oculus Quest 2 — with what appears to be four tracking cameras, dual RGB cameras, and a depth sensor for full-color passthrough. No controllers are included in the images, so it appears that the Samsung XR device, like the Vision Pro, would use standard hand and eye tracking controls.

A black plastic VR headset with a simple strap and six visible cameras on the faces

(Image credit: Vrtuoluo/Samsung)

The prototype also apparently uses dual micro OLED screens and (surprisingly) a Samsung Exynos 2200 rather than a Qualcomm XR chip like the Snapdragon XR 2 found in many VR headsets like the Pico 4 or an XR 2 Plus like the one in the MetaQuestPro.