Eyes On With Qualcomm's Snapdragon 835 VR Headset

LAS VEGAS—Qualcomm's VR headsets don't need PCs or phones; just strap them on and you can walk through a virtual world. At CES, Qualcomm demoed its new Snapdragon 835 VR headset with some impressive content that showed standalone VR can really work.

Like the Snapdragon 820 VR headset we saw last September, the 835 headset is a reference device. Qualcomm is hoping that other companies pick up the idea, and the unit, and bring it to market. That didn't happen in the US for the 820, but Qualcomm staffers said the 835 has a much better chance.

The headset looks and feels a lot like a Samsung Gear VR($48.40 at Amazon) with a built-in phone, but the difference is in the experience. Qualcomm demoed it with two pieces of software. The first, tied to the upcoming Power Rangers movie, was really well-rendered. You stood in a cave full of Power Rangers characters, and the scene felt cinematic. The second, a colorful underwater reef, showed the gaming potential of a headset like this. Whereas the Snapdragon 820 VR rendered an octopus, the 835 can render a whole underwater world.

The Snapdragon headset's big advantage over the Gear VR comes in its ability to sense when you're moving, so you can actually walk around the virtual world without having sensor boxes in your room like with the HTC Vive($799.99 at Amazon). You can duck under objects and walk past things, and since you're untethered, you're not going to trip on any cables.

It's striking. It's also missing a controller, so you can interact with the world around you, and none of the demos are actual games. A mobile headset isn't going to have the power of a full gaming PC, after all.

Beyond whether any company will actually sell this, there are big questions around content. Power Rangers is one thing, but as no other form of mobile VR allows you to walk around on your own steam, Google Daydream and Gear VR content will have to be altered to take real advantage of how the Snapdragon VR works.

So as a hardware demo, the Snapdragon 835 VR is undoubtably impressive. The ability to walk around virtual spaces is liberating, and there's enough power in the headset to actually render those spaces. But it's an unfinished story, one we hope to hear more about later this year.

Qualcomm is not alone in this quest, though. Rival Intel said last night it expects to launch untethered, Project Alloy-based VR headsets by year's end.