If you watched Samsung unpacked 2023 Earlier this week, you’ll know that the company announced a new initiative in Extended Reality, or XR. What we didn’t get were details of an actual physical product – and that’s where a new leak comes in.
As discovered by galaxy club (opens in new tab) (above SamMobile (opens in new tab)), a battery that just passed regulatory certification in South Korea, matches a specific model number that the rumor mill linked to an upcoming Samsung device last year.
This device, model number SM-I120, was thought to be some kind of AR/VR wearable. Add in the announcement at Samsung Unpacked and the appearance of this battery pack and it looks likely that this hardware product is on the way.
Goodbye Gear VR
We can’t glean too much information from this battery leak – we don’t know the capacity, for example – but it does suggest a standalone device that can operate independently without being connected to a computer or a smartphone.
That distinguishes her from that Samsung Gear VR Series, devices you had to stick a phone in. We can expect a pretty clean break from the virtual reality hardware Samsung has released in the past.
It’s worth remembering that this might not be the product that Samsung was referring to when they made Unpacked in collaboration with Qualcomm and Google – in fact, it might just be a prototype. But it’s an interesting look into the future.
Analysis: What is Extended Reality anyway?
Terms like virtual reality and extended reality can be difficult to keep track of – especially when companies use them in different ways. A label affixed to something by one manufacturer may not mean the same thing as a label affixed by another manufacturer.
What most people agree on is that virtual reality (VR) refers to fully enclosed digital worlds (see the Oculus Quest 2, For example). Augmented Reality (AR) refers to putting digital overlays on the physical world, and you can now do that with the cameras of many smartphones (see Google Maps live view).
Then there are devices that mix both: Mixed Reality (MR). Perhaps the best example of this is the Microsoft HoloLensalthough the term is pretty elusive – sometimes it means a more supercharged, interactive version of AR, and sometimes it means VR with a dash of AR (e.g. a video call feed inserted into a virtual world).
Extended Reality (XR) is most commonly used as an all-encompassing term covering AR, VR and MR – meaning Samsung hasn’t given too much away by telling us it’s working on a new technology. Expect the leaks and rumors to continue.
