At this week’s Mobile World Congress (MWC), Shanghai, Qualcomm announced a partnership with Ximmerse to bring motion-control support to upcoming mobile virtual reality (VR) devices. Via inclusion in its Head Mounted Display Accelerator Program (HAP), Ximmerse will provide the Flip controller for partners developing hardware using Qualcomm’s reference design.
The Ximmerse Flip is a three-degrees-of-freedom (3 DoF) VR controller that can provide a wide range of interaction such as pointing, selecting, grabbing, shooting, and more. The controller operates similarly to Google’s Daydream controller, and Samsung’s Gear VR equivalent. However, for precise 6 DoF positional head-tracking, Qualcomm has integrated its sensor fusion processing, along with data from both the camera and inertial sensors, pushing the scope of tracking input beyond that of the major mobile VR competitors.
Qualcomm’s mobile VR reference design was first unveiled last year at IFA, Berlin, known as the Qualcomm Snapdragon VR820. In principle, the platform includes advanced features that let manufacturers create their own standalone mobile VR head-mounted displays (HMDs). HTC and Lenovo have already expressed an interest in this design for their co-operation with Google.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon VR820 won’t launch as a device in its own right, though the fact that Qualcomm are further strengthening their support for the device and HAP platform suggests that there has been significant interest from the industry. VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest details on Qualcomm’s efforts in VR.
via Mint VR