Notebook Italia has published an image of the new standalone device that Asus would be working on to launch in 2017, and that could integrate the latest from Qualcomm.
Asus would be preparing an autonomous viewer to launch this year, according to the image leaked by Notebook Italia. The new device would integrate everything necessary to enjoy virtual reality. Hence its name of AIO VR, whose initials stand for All in One, all in one. Little else is known about this virtual reality HMD that bears a strong resemblance to Google’s View viewer for Daydream, although it is rumored that it could integrate Qualcomm’s virtual reality platform with the Snapdragon 835 processor.
It must be remembered that both Intel with Project Alloy and Qualcomm with Snapdragon VR820 offer reference platforms for other manufacturers to implement, so it is feasible to think that Asus was manufacturing its version of Snapdragon VR820. Something that the company is already doing on desktop devices, by partnering with Microsoft to manufacture one of the viewers that will be available for the next Windows 10 update. If the leak were true, AIO VR would not be the only device based on Qualcomm’s platform, as there are also others such as Pico’s Neo CV.
Autonomous devices are gaining prominence as the year progresses, and according to the recent study published by ABI Research, these will be the ones that will drive the virtual reality market in the future.