Acer has announced its plans to release a VR device in the first half of this year. While Acer is staying mum on the details, we could be seeing prototypes at next week’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona.

Acer CEO Jason Chen told reporters on Tuesday that the company “has been conducting research and development of VR technologies for a while,” and that the Taiwanese tech giant would be “planning to introduce some new technologies to surprise everyone,” reports Taipei Times.

“We are thinking of how to expand Acer’s reach in the field and turn our VR technologies into a business. And that is an important element in the process of Acer’s corporate transformation,” Chen said.

According to a report from PocketNow, Acer has been rumored to be showing prototypes at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Road to VR will be attending MWC 2016 with hopes of seeing if the rumors pan out, and just what sort of mysterious VR device—headset or otherwise—Acer has been developing.

See Also: New Samsung ‘Unpacked’ Event Teaser Puts the Spotlight on Gear VR on Feb 21st

Making a competitive VR headset nowadays isn’t as easy as slapping a smartphone in a plastic holder with lenses anymore. Large hardware manufacturers Like Samsung and HTC have included virtual reality in their next growth strategy for some time, and in a bid to stay competitive they’ve started to retool their manufacturing processes to make way for custom-built parts like VR-specific displays and ultra-sensitive IMUs capable of sub 20 millisecond latency. Now with VR clearly out of the niche sector and headed straight into the factories of tech giants like Acer, we’ll be interested to see just what the big boys of global manufacturing are going to pull out of their R&D labs.

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Check back with us this week as we cover the rumored Acer prototypes and all the latest AR/VR news to come out of MWC 2016.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • mellott124

    Hopefully it’s a real HMD or something comparable to GearVR. We have enough Cardboard units out there.

  • Mateusz

    I’m unfortunately worried this might be just another cardboard spinoff but who knows. I would be excited if it was at least GearVR grade headset :)

    • Nathan Casey

      Why would they hype a vr device to be shown at mwc if it was a google cardboard.

      • Mateusz

        Well Matell View Master and few others were hyped as VR devices (which they are) but in reality they don’t offer anything better than what you can get with a cardboard.

        • Nathan Casey

          I don’t think they would make so much hype for something like a google cardboard. I’m assuming it’s something like a gear vr or an aura visor

  • Yoan Conet

    I think more about a omnidirectional treadmill.

    They say “explore beyond limit”. That means explore physically the virtual floor beyond your walls…

    • Steve B

      Why would Acer work on omnidirectional treadmills?

      • It’s an important problem to solve?

    • kalqlate

      Taking into account possible language impedance, I’m sure what is meant is “limitless exploration”, which is what all VR solutions provide.

  • dashmaul

    My guess would be something along the lines of a VR capable laptop with Motion Leap Orion built in

  • kalqlate

    Acer is known for good quality products in the affordable range. I’m sure their VR product(s) will put price pressure on others in the industry.

  • Doctor Bambi

    I didn’t know Acer worked on mobile devices, but then again I’ve always known then for budget PCs. When I saw Acer in the title of this article, my guess was they would be announcing their own budget conscious, VR ready PC.
    But that wouldn’t make sense for MWC, unless it’s a laptop.

    • They do make cell phones, tablets and smart watches. Not sure how their business may translate to VR, but I’m certainly interested, particularly learning that they are planning on restructuring their corporate model to accommodate it. Understandable considering VR is projected to be as large of a sea change in computing and media consumption as smart phones were, but still very interesting to see a large multinational tech company’s approach to joining the crest of the wave in an attempt to surf it.

  • Rob Xsiq

    oh no…another headset.
    …
    please stop. If you want to jump on the cash cow that will be VR..make a perfect universal handgrip/mouse thing that is superior to the rest…the biggest issue I see with all the vr things is a lack of decent handling tools to manipulate 3d..oculus has a damn xbox 1 controller ffs

  • Mateusz

    I guess rumors didn’t turn out to be true

  • Did anything end up happening with this?