ASUS preparing its own VR headset, likely Daydream compatible

After wearables have arguably yet to gain the massive traction that many were hoping for, VR seems to be the new tech buzzword these days. Just about every OEM on the block is attempting to get in and grab a piece of the action. In the mobile VR space, Samsung and Google are the reigning champs, but it seems that ASUS wants in the game as well.

While VR wasn’t part of its Computex 2016 press event, in ASUS’ demo area you’ll find a virtual reality headset on display behind glass with the name “ASUS VR” on it. There’s next to zero information about the device, and so all we have to go on is that it offers leather straps akin to the ZenWatch and appears to have a touchpad and a few buttons on the side, a configuration that’s very familiar to the Daydream-compatible ZTE VR.

Considering ASUS has previously said that they consider AR a bigger priority than VR, we find it hard to believe that they’d develop their own VR platform. So instead, we’d imagine what we are looking at is an early ‘concept’ of an ASUS Daydream VR headset. Obviously that’s just speculation on our part, but it makes sense that ASUS would embrace Google’s VR platform, after all ASUS has a history of jumping onboard with Google creating several Android Wear watches, the Android TV-based Google Nexus Player, and the Google-backed OnHub router. And considering ZTE already has announced a 3rd party Daydream headset, we’d say this is really a no brainer.

What do you think, are we looking at one of the first 3rd party Daydream headsets? Hopefully we don’t have too much further to wait, and perhaps ASUS will give us more details around IFA or even sooner.