Why Google and Facebook Want to Make a New Kind of VR Headset

So far, the landscape of virtual reality has been split between two types of headsets: expensive, high-end devices like the Oculus Rift that require PCs and external cameras, and cheap devices like Google’s Cardboard and Daydream that use smartphones as displays, sacrificing quality to make a mass-market product. This week, Facebook and Google made it clear that they’re both rushing toward a middle ground.

At a conference for developers, Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Oculus was making a headset that wouldn’t require users to tether themselves to a PC. He showed a short video of a prototype that had no wires and seemed to contain the processors in a compartment sitting at the back of the wearer’s head. Like so much of what is happening in virtual reality, the presentation was more on the promise of a glorious future than a depiction of anything tangible that is happening in the present day. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up yet,” said Zuckerberg. “We have a demo, but we don’t have a product.”