Google Daydream View 2: Rumors and news

Why it matters to you

Google’s new Daydream View looks to be a refined take on a smartphone-based VR.

It’s been nearly a year since Google launched Daydream View, a virtual reality headset designed to work with Android smartphones. But rumor has it that Google is readying a successor.

The new Daydream View, which was first reported on by Droid Life on Tuesday, September 19, looks remarkably similar to the model it is replacing. Its rounded corners curve a bit more gradually than the first-gen Daydream View, and the magnetic flap on the front sits a bit more flush with the visor. And although it’s tough to tell from a rendering alone, the new headset’s nylon material seems to be thinner and finer — and possibly more absorbent.

All those changes might help explain the new Daydream View’s rumored $99 asking price, which is a $20 bump over the original. Droid Life wasn’t able to get its hands on a spec sheet but speculates that a few “internal upgrades” contribute to the price too.

Droid-Life

Wherever the upgrades are, they don’t seem to be in the controller. Judging by the leaked image, the new Daydream View will ship with the same sensor-equipped, button-laden Daydream View controller.

The new Daydream View is expected to launch at a Google press event on October 4, where it will reportedly be joined onstage by the Google Home mini and two new Pixel-branded smartphones.

Whenever the new Daydream View is announced, we expect to hear more about Daydream 2.0 Euphrates, the second generation of Daydream-driven VR experiences. First revealed at Google’s I/O developer conference in May, Daydream 2.0 has a resigned app launcher, a new dashboard that lets you capture screenshots and beam in-game video of what you’re seeing to a Chromecast dongle, and loads of under-the-hood optimizations.

On a technical level, Daydream 2.0 promises much richer and more visually detailed experiences than Daydream 1.0. A new rendering technique named Project Seurot (after the French pointillist painter) aims to bring desktop-grade graphics to Daydream 2.0 headsets. It’s able to compress a scene with 50 million polygons to 72,000 with little-to-no loss in quality, Google said at I/O, and generate scenes that look nearly like real life.

Daydream 2.0 also supports stand-alone headsets. Thanks to Google’s WorldSense positional tracking technology and Visual Positioning Service (VPS), which the Mountain View, California-based company developed in partnership with Qualcomm, Daydream’s software can track all objects within the surrounding environment and map virtual objects onto real-life tables, walls, and chairs.

There is nothing to suggest the new Daydream View will work without a smartphone, but we wouldn’t be surprised to hear more about stand-alone Daydream headsets in the coming months. HTC announced in May that it would make the first.