Google’s rumored standalone VR headset may employ Movidius chips
Breaking through the power bottleneck
One of the biggest remaining issues for Google or anyone else looking to build a mobile solution for AR, VR, or vision-intensive applications is power consumption. GPUs are much better than CPUs at chewing through the computations required, but usually at the expense of consuming great amounts of power. So, for now, custom silicon looks to be part of the solution. Google has already announced that it will be partnering with startup Movidius to incorporate its in future phones. So it would make perfect sense that Google would also use those chips in a VR headset — although so far both companies aren’t willing to comment publicly on the speculation.
Better Android integration than Gear VR or HTC Vive
One advantage that Google has over Samsung and HTC is its control of the Android operating system. , one weakness of current devices is clumsy integration with the native device OS. A Google-branded, standalone device could benefit from a more-seamless integration with Android. I’d expect it to run existing Cardboard applications, but it might add a complete VR interface to Google Play — so that content and apps could be managed directly from the device, unless the user is expected to manage the headset’s applications from their smartphone.
Separately, it is likely that Google will follow-up the mass-market success of Cardboard with a slightly higher-end version, perhaps to be announced (or even given away) at its I/O conference this May. I’d expect that product to look more like a Gear VR — with lenses, sensors, and perhaps even audio — but be dependent on your smartphone for most of its processing and its display. Of course, it would also support a wider variety of smartphone models than the few the Gear VR does.