Samsung's Gear VR headset, which famously made Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak "emotional," is locked in competition with the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive in the burgeoning virtual reality industry. However, one disadvantage of the Samsung Gear VR is that while the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are standalone headsets, Samsung's offering requires it to be paired with one of the company's compatible smartphones.
Samsung confirmed a few months ago that it is working on a standalone virtual headset, though at the time, there were few details on the project. One piece of information known about the upcoming system was that it would have positional tracking, which is a feature utilized by other standalone virtual reality headsets.
The company still has not revealed any more official information regarding the device, but recent trademark and logo applications made by Samsung supposedly reveal the name of its upcoming standalone headset.
Galaxy Club discovered Samsung's filings for the registration of the Odyssey brand name in its home country of South Korea, along with two logos. While one logo does not reveal anything, the other one is a stylized "VR," which points to the likely possibility that Odyssey will be the name of Samsung's standalone virtual reality headset.
Adding to the proof that Odyssey will indeed be the name of Samsung's standalone virtual reality headset are the short descriptions that came along with the applications. Among the included tags are "virtual reality game headsets," "virtual reality game software" and "computer featuring interactive video games of virtual reality."
The applications were filed over the course of two days, which means they are all likely related. Perhaps the other logo is for the Odyssey brand, as it could be seen as a stylized "O" with a line through its center.
It is thought that Samsung's virtual reality headset will be manufactured by the company itself and is not a product of its partnership with Oculus, which helped Samsung develop the Gear VR and is believed to be assisting the company with the Gear VR 2 as well.
While the evidence is convincing, until Samsung makes an official confirmation or announcement there is always the possibility that Odyssey won't be the name of its upcoming standalone virtual reality headset. We'll just have to wait for the company to unveil the device, though that may still be quite some time from now.
