The website patentlymobile.com has come across a patent filed by Samsung in the USA relating to VR glasses with curved displays. According to the patent, this type of glasses should have a much larger field of vision than the VR glasses used today.
Several sketches taken from the patent application were published on the said website. These show the planned structure of the curved head-mounted display. In addition, Samsung is to address in detail in the patent application the problems of HMDs that are widespread today. This would limit the field of vision of humans, which is naturally around 200 degrees, too much, which would have a negative effect on immersion. The visual experience of today’s widespread HMDs with fields of view between 100 and 120 degrees is similar to that of a periscope – so it is severely limited and altogether inadequate if an immersive experience is to be achieved.
The device outlined in the patent should offer a field of view of 180 degrees, which is achieved by the curved display. The display is completely curved, but does not differ significantly from the displays of today’s HMDs in other respects. The display shown in the patent is also viewed via two lenses.
The device shown should be suitable both for playback of VR applications that are displayed exclusively on the display and for applications that record the external view via a camera and supplement it with virtual content.
Whether and when such a product will actually be released by Samsung is not yet known. Samsung filed its patent application in the third quarter of 2018, so it is likely that VR glasses will still be in the early stages of development.
