Oculus shows short demo of standalone VR headset with motion tracking

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took the stage at Oculus Connect today, where he discussed hardware he calls a middle ground between mobile VR and VR that’s attached to the PC. He showed a standalone VR platform that doesn’t need to attach to anything and includes inside-out tracking, where the sensors are placed on the hardware and the markers that allow the tracking are placed on the environment.

Oculus showed off hardware that’s completely standalone, with positional tracking, but Zuckerberg warned that it was very early and they only have a prototype that they can show. The quick demo they showed onstage was impressive, but Zuckerberg offered no release date or even an approximation of when this sort of hardware would be released. It’s unclear exactly how the positional tracking was achieved.

Oculus and Facebook clearly have some big plans, including over $500 million marked for the development of content — not including the $10 million set for the development of education software. Oculus and Facebook seem to be shooting to own both the hardware and software side of the market.