Samsung Unpacked is expected to kick off next month with the usual slate of hardware announcements, which this year could include the company’s latest foldable smartphones, Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Fold 7, and its latest Galaxy Watch 8. Rumors suggest though the company is also looking to put its upcoming XR headset, Project Moohan, in the spotlight too.

Project Moohan was announced alongside Android XR back in December 2024, which will be the first device to run Google’s upcoming XR operating system. Samsung has said in the past that consumers should expect Project Moohan’s launch sometime this year, although it still doesn’t have a specific date or official name scheme.

Now, Samsung serial leaker ‘Panda Flash‘ reports the company’s upcoming mixed reality headset could finally get a release date there.

While were initially expecting to hear something about Project Moohan at Google I/O last month (we didn’t), Samsung might be keeping the device a little closer to home than initially thought.

Samsung Project Moohan | Image courtesy The Verge

Panda Flash, who has been following Galaxy Z Flip 7 and Fold 7 leaks and supply chain rumors, additionally reports the headset will launch first in South Korea, and then gradually launch globally sometime afterwards—essentially mirroring Apple’s US-first launch of Vision Pro before heading into other markets.

Samsung has shown its supposed Vision Pro competitor at a number of events over the past year, which includes our opportunity to go hands-on with Project Moohan in December, although the company has largely stayed mum on revealing the XR headset’s full spec sheet.

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So far, we know the Android XR headset is packing in a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 + Gen 2, Sony-sourced micro‑OLED panels (resolution still TBA), pancake lenses, automatic interpupillary distance (IPD) adjustment, support for eye and hand-tracking, optional magnetically-attached light shield, and a removable external battery pack. It also supports VR motion controllers of some sort, although we haven’t seen those either.

We’re also hoping to learn more about the company’s smart glasses efforts; Samsung is reportedly working on a pair of smart glasses that could launch sometime this year—ostensibly looking to serve up competition to Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.

Whatever the case, we’ll be looking out for official dates for Samsung Unpacked, which is expected to take place sometime early next month in New York City.

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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 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • guest

    Cannot imagine such fragile devices being sold in the same places as most Samsung cellphones.

    • XRC

      The same is true of AVP?

      • guest

        Well here in America, its seems every carrier's cellphone shops is understaffed by a churn of employees and display models of anything get thrashed and are often intentionally non-functional devices. In contrast, Apple stores are in upscale locations, with closely watched devices, and well-staffed with knowledgable employees. This is something that Apple has cultivated for decades and no amount of money can ramp up in any short period of time.

    • Nevets

      That which you cannot imagine and reality have an enormous intersection.

      • Wow, that's pretty deep, man.

        #Heaviosity

        ✌️

        • Snake Oil Comfort

          Yeah, deep shit like AI. I don't want to imagine what it would feed me from recipe for disaster!

  • Nevets

    It has a mediocre processor. What is there to recommend this now, over waiting to see what Valve or Meta offer in 2026?

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Depends on when it is released, if it's released right after presentation, then one might get it because it's available 'now'. One might wait forever if one thinks the next headset in the coming year is better…

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      1) That it will be available for purchase in 2025 as a 3.5K standalone HMD from an established manufacturer with a vast non-VR software library thanks to Android XR and having access to Google's Play Store.

      2) That Meta apparently postponed Quest 4 to 2027, which probably means that Qualcomm also postponed the XR2 Gen 3 to 2027, because Meta's Quest consumer VR/XR HMD line selling in large numbers is still the main XR2 user. Which in turn would mean that Meta's now rumored "faster than Quest 3" 2026 USD 1000 Loma HMD will use the exact same "mediocre" XR2+ Gen 2 as Samsung's Project Moohan.

      3) Valve time making any bets on a 2026 Deckard release risky business.

  • Mike

    Surprised Samsung would use a Sony display. Samsung is one of the top OLED display companies.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      TL;DR: Samsung is big in OLED, but not microOLED, and their (acquired) microOLED technology probably wasn't/isn't ready for Project Moohan yet.

      Moohan isn't using an OLED panel, where Samsung would be one of the leading producers, but an microOLED display, which is a very different technology just using the same physical principles (organic molecule based diodes) to generate light. In October 2023 Samsung bought eMagin, who have been working on micro displays since 1996 and had shown a 4K microOLED prototype at DisplayWeek 2022, already developed in partnership with Samsung. What's special about eMagin's microOLEDs is that they use true RGB pixels instead of less energy efficient white OLED background pixels paired with RGB color filters, like other existing microOLEDs, incl. those from Sony.

      At the time of the acquisition, the CEO of eMagin said that they would use Samsung's much larger financial resources and production experience to get their microOLED displays from (expensive) small scale production up to industrial mass market scale, which would take at least 18 months, meaning April 2025 at the very earliest. That Samsung now went with Sony microOLEDs instead probably means that their/eMagin's improved microOLEDs still aren't available at the required quality level or numbers, or they became available too late in Project Moohan's development to still be incorporated.

      As Moohan with an expected USD ~2000 price will very likely not be a mass market device, instead target first mover/developer and sell in rather moderate numbers similar to AVP, it was probably more important to get it going in 2025 rather than than have it use Samsung's own microOLEDS.

      • Mike

        I see. Interesting. Thanks for the detailed explanation.

  • Moohan & Deckard this year ….

    Quest 3 + VisionPRO successors *next* year ….

    So very exciting!!!

    [] ^ )

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    TL;DR: we haven't seen any use on Moohan other than for Google apps with Gemini, and a lot of things that Apple had ready during the 2023 AVP introduction are missing in Google's ecosystem, casting some doubt on it being ready for a consumer launch.

    Still wondering what exactly they want to show. When Apple showed AVP in mid 2023, they already demonstrated most of the features it launched with in early 2024, including the use of iPad apps extended for XR, several of their own apps adapted for AVP, high quality 3D video based on their own Apple TV streaming service and integration with Facetime/iMessage. So they had a number of actual applications.

    Shortly after the presentation of AVP, Samsung/Google postponed project Moohan and AndroidXR, apparently to overhaul esp. the user interface, which during the hands-on in December 2024 turned out to now resemble a mix of AVP and Quest. But the hands-on was less of a demonstration of Moohan's general capabilities, and more a (very impressive) showcase how AndroidXR could be used in combination with Google's Gemini AI.

    Google will offer similar tools to Android developers to make their apps more usable in XR, just like Apple and now also Meta, and AndroidXR will run exiting flat apps by default. But so far we haven't seen anything but Google apps being used on Moohan, and no integration into exiting services, no 3rd party apps and no special media services. I'm sure Moohan will come with a great YouTube client and be the first standalone to offer Google Earth, and they very likely have been working with developers in the background to get more content. But they are cutting it kind of short for a 2025 release, most likely due to going back to the drawing board in 2023 with Project Moohan that originally was expected to launch in late 2024.

    AVP turned out to see a lot more limited use in reality than even Apple expected, with much of the real world use based on high quality video thanks to Apple TV, for which Google/Samsung don't even have an alternative. I have no doubt that Google and Samsung will manage to turn Moohan into a useful XR device over time, but right now it looks like the initial main use cases for Project Moohan will be hires PCVR streaming or using Gemini with Google apps.

    • guest

      The fact that they are gearing up for just 100000 units at over $2000 means that this product is just a hedge that the whole AI glasses future will fail (mark my word), and some other company will have the XR market cornered by then.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        TL;DR: aiming for only a fraction of the already low AVP sales numbers even with a significantly cheaper and lighter HMD certainly isn't a good sign, but probably matches overall reduced expectations about how fast (high price) standalone XR HMDs will be adapted by consumers.

        The 100K units (per year) is a lot less than the 450K Apple was aiming for, and Apple was limited by how many microOLED displays Sony could deliver, which Samsung isn't, as they are using newer Sony microOLEDs with less restricted production.

        A lot of reviewers actually liked the AVP, but pretty much universally said it was a) too heavy and b) too expensive. Moohan should address both concerns, being more than 40% cheaper (if the USD 2000 are correct), and also much lighter than AVP in addition to using a halo strap that will distribute weight better. So still low balling production numbers isn't exactly a vote of confidence for the initial AndroidXR HMD.

        It might be because too many things still aren't working, so they don't have enough to properly advertise/sell its usefulness. Or there are simply a lot more Apple users willing to pay very high prices, though high end Samsung phones aren't exactly cheap either. Or they were stumped by Apple not even selling through its initial production run, slowing production only a few months after launch and stopping it completely by late 2024, now only selling existing inventory, estimated to be around 500K-600K, until a successor is released.

        This doesn't bode well for the higher end stand-alone market. AVP launching provided a huge boost, but AVP underperforming in sales took a lot of that away again. But for the expensive microOLEDs to become feasible in cheaper mid- to low end HMDs, a lot more have to be sold to trigger economies of scale, and less than a million distributed over several companies and years won't be enough.

        There are still no signs of higher end Horizon OS HMDs from Asus or Lenovo, Quest 4 got delayed, and all the 3.5K microOLED HMDs sell above USD 1500, while Meta has problems to get people to buy USD 500 Quest 3. People have been asking for a higher performance/feature tier for years, but it was never clear if there is a sustainable consumer market for this outside a high price enthusiast niche. Given the lack of engagement by companies, they don't seem to believe that such a market exists (yet).

  • xyzs

    Nice, VR (call it XR if you like) needs much more high-end products in the race.
    You cannot go anywhere with one overpriced inexistent VR headset, and one cheap semi-popular competitor, both stalling for more than 2 years without hardware improvements, as the only 2 products with real interest.

    It can only work if at least 10 product deserving attention are showing improvements regularly.

  • flynnstigator

    Some of us will win from Moohan and AndroidXR no matter what happens. Standalone enthusiasts win if it succeeds (especially if they’re fed up with Meta), PCVR enthusiasts win if it fails, because it could mean that the unsold inventory gets sold at a steep discount like Windows Mixed Reality headsets. A dirt-cheap Samsung Odyssey+ got me into VR, and I’ve been here ever since.

  • Ondrej

    It's funny how neither Apple, nor Samsung can rival a tiny company Bigscreen in sleek design of a VR headset.

    This was not on my bingo card.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      It's funny how Bigscreen can't rival neither Apple nor Samsung in sleek design when they have to add the camera's, SOC and battery to the headset…..

      • Ondrej

        20 quite large photodiodes spread all over the device probably takes as much space as the cameras AVP has.

        So let me correct my previous statement: it's absolutely PATHETIC this tiny company is destroying Apple, Samsung, Google and Meta in VR.

        Battery is in the puck. SoC + cooling is the only reasonable argument you used. But guess what? New Quest PRO has SoC in the puck too. Wanna bet it won't be half as sleek as Beyond?

        • Andrew Jakobs

          Again, that many camera's also need to be positioned with a fisheyelens, and the soc with all the extra hardware (as there are more chips used as only the soc) won't fit into the 'slick'design of the Bigscreen. I would only be impressed if they can achieve that, but with nothing but a few diodes and the displays, it isn't THAT hard to get a slick formfactor.

          so saying it is absolutely PATHETIC, is actualky pathetic. Yeah I would agree if both Apple and Meta would release a tethered basestation based bare headset the size of the AVP or Q3, but both the AVP and the Q3 are not, they both also have audio which the bigscreen doesn't provide. So you're comparing apples with pears.