Thoughts on stand alone VR devices

Google is rumored to be working on a stand alone VR headset. I think a stand alone headset makes a lot of sense:

1/ Dual-purpose devices don’t work out. VR is good enough for people to want to purchase a stand alone device. Or it’s not good enough, and then it doesn’t matter either way.

2/ Also, a well made VR viewer that attaches to a phone (i.e. Gear VR) is just as big and almost as heavy as a stand alone viewer would be. So there are only marginal space savings to be made.

3/ Making the best VR experience is not the same thing as making a mobile phone. Screens needs to be optimized differently, possibly using more than one screen. Chip cooling is a thing in VR. Faster sensors. Different appication stack. Support for positioning and control input. So many things are different from what needs to go into a phone.

4/ Compared with desktop/console, the mobile eco-system is 10X the size and revenue and longterm this is where you want to build your product. Desktop and console VR, were the headset is attached with a silly cable to a big loud box, may make some sense in gaming and short term. But longer term that just seems silly. Look at the iPads benchmark scores - those things are already rediculously fast.

A great stand alone mobile headset, launched in 2018, that should be the iPhone-moment of VR.