After nearly four years on the market, Samsung’s Gear VR smartphone-based headset may be getting a rebrand.
A report from Sammobile states that Samsung will soon rename the Oculus-powered device to Galaxy VR. That name would bring it in-line with the company’s Galaxy series of smartphones that power the device, and Samsung is said to also be rebranding other Gear peripherals under the same banner. The report doesn’t state exactly when the switch will be announced, though does speculate that it could happen with next year’s Galaxy S10 instead of the upcoming announcement of the Galaxy Note 9.
We’ve reached out to Samsung for comment on the rumor.
If true, we wonder if this will be the only big change for Gear VR coming soon. It makes sense that a new name would also mean a new model that could support one of Samsung’s upcoming phones, but would that boast any significant new features? We’ve long wanted to see 6 degrees of freedom (6DOF) inside-out tracking on Gear, and Qualcomm says that’s possible with the latest Galaxy S9, so could official support be coming?
On the other hand, the device is now closely linked to Oculus’ standalone headset, Oculus Go, sharing almost identical content libraries, so we doubt that partnership is going to change any time soon.
