It has been a while since the Oculus Rift headset has been refreshed. This is versus headsets like the HTC Vive which has seen several variations launched to date. There were talks about a Rift 2, but as Engadget points out, a report from TechCrunch back in 2018 suggested that the company might be looking to release a lightly-refreshed Rift S headset instead.
Now it looks like those rumors could be true because according to a report from UploadVR, they have discovered within supporting files for the Oculus PC software that there are references made to the “Rift S”. Exactly what kind of specs or features the Rift S will feature over its predecessor is unclear, but there are some hints at what we could expect.
For example there is mention of “lighting frequency for Rift S cameras to adjust to room lighting,” which seems to hint at built-in tracking cameras. There is also mention of a software setting that could allow users to adjust “IPD (Interpupillary Distance)”, hinting at Oculus possibly dropping the hardware IPD adjustment.
Perhaps the end result could be a simpler to use VR headset that would make it easier (and possibly cheaper) to adopt. There is no word on when the headset will be announced, but with the Facebook F8 conference pegged for end of April 2019, perhaps we might learn more about it then.
Filed in . Read more about Oculus, Oculus Rift, Virtual Reality (VR) and Wearable Tech.