Once upon a time, VR headsets that housed smartphones had been all of the rage, way to the preliminary push through Google and its adoption through Samsung and VR tech large Oculus. Those days are lengthy gone, of course, with committed VR headsets turning into the brand new fad in that market. The Gear VR, however, nonetheless exists and continues to be supported on a few handsets. That, however, will quit as soon as the Galaxy S10 collection gets its One UI four replace, which seemingly won’t be lengthy now.
The concept in the back of the likes of the Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream became without a doubt enticing. Using handiest a easy headset and a tool which you have already got with you all of the time, you can transfer among the actual global and the digital global everywhere you need. Unfortunately, that setup didn’t offer sufficient abilties for a powerful VR revel in, in particular whilst it comes to go and function tracking.
That sort of VR revel in sooner or later fell out of fashion, and each Google and Samsung formally introduced the discontinuation in their smartphone-primarily based totally VR platforms. That said, Gear VR nonetheless persisted to function minimally, so long as there had been telephones that supported it. Specifically, the Galaxy S10, S10+ S10e, and S10 5G nonetheless paintings with the closing Gear VR headset, however that’s handiest proper till subsequent month.
Oculus exhibits that those telephones will lose aid for Gear VR as soon as Android 12 lands thru the One UI four replace. A leaked Samsung record indicated that the Galaxy S10 collection won’t get that replace till January 2022, however Oculus’s very own aid record says it’ll appear this December. That’s without a doubt welcome information if the improve does come a month earlier.
Oculus says that people who don’t need to lose get right of entry to to Gear VR must keep away from upgrading to Android 12. Given how the VR platform is quite tons useless anyway, that may not precisely be a sensible tradeoff, in particular in case you are sacrificing protection and functions for a subpar VR revel in.
