Samsung kicked off the Android 7.0 Nougat beta program for its flagship Galaxy S7 edge and Galaxy S7 smartphones in early November. Thanks to the beta program, users of the handsets in the United States, China, the UK and South Korea could register and get access to the firmware's beta version once they were selected.
Those excited by the news will be a little disheartened to know that the Android 7.0 Nougat beta for the Samsung smartphones does not bring support for the Gear VR headset.
That's right, if you attempt to connect your Galaxy S7 edge or Galaxy S7 smartphone to the Gear VR headset, you will not be able to establish a connection.
This news was first reported by the folks at VRheads who share that once one installs the preview version of Android 7.0 Nougat on their Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge smartphone, access to any Gear VR games is lost.
What's The Issue?
When a user opens the Oculus Store app post the installation of Android Nougat beta on their Galaxy S7 edge or Galaxy S7 smartphone, they are greeted with the "Network error" message and asked to try again later.
When the app on the smartphone attempts to connect to the Oculus Store, this error message basically stops the entire virtual setting from loading. Therefore, Gear VR cannot be used in conjunction with either smartphone running the beta version of Android 7.0 Nougat.
Why The Error?
The error message likely pops up because the Oculus app is not updated to support Android 7.0 Nougat beta.
Any Workarounds?
No temporary workaround to make Gear VR work on the beta version of the Android Nougat OS for the Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge is available currently. Moreover, it is unlikely that an Oculus Services update will be pushed out to address the problem during the beta stage because Samsung's beta program is not performance-optimized yet.
However, we anticipate that Samsung will push out an update before it rolls out the public release of Android 7.0 Nougat for its flagships.
Any Other Solution?
If you have updated your phone to Android 7.0 Nougat beta and wish to use the Gear VR headset in tandem with your Galaxy S7 edge or Galaxy S7, there is only one option - downgrade to Marshmallow.
To do so, you have to deregister from the Galaxy Beta Program via the app. Once this is done, you will be prompted to install a file. Installing this will enable you to roll back to the latest and most stable available firmware for your Samsung handset.
