Oculus Go, the VR Baby of Facebook Will Be Manufactured By Xiaomi

Last October, social media king Facebook announced a standalone VR headset called “Oculus Go” which can work without a Smartphone; Yesterday at CES Facebook revealed the manufacturer of Oculus Go.

Facebook’s VR Vice President Hugo Barra, popped up at the Qualcomm’s CES press conference and shared the news that Chinese company Xiaomi will be the hardware partner for Oculus Go. Priced at $199, the device has a Qualcomm processor- the Snapdragon 821.

The partnership between Xiaomi, Qualcomm, and Facebook in producing Oculus Go wasn’t a shocker since Barra’s previous employer was Xiaomi.  Speaking at the event, Barra stated “Xiaomi is our hardware partner for launching Oculus Go globally. Oculus and Xiaomi are jointly announcing a new standalone VR product that is designed specifically for the Chinese market.”

Xiaomi and Facebook also announced Mi VR standalone - A standalone VR headset similar to Oculus Go that will be sold only in China.  It’s no secret that Facebook and China are always at loggerheads since the social networking site was banned in 2009. So this localized version will have very few changes and will be customized for the Chinese market.

Joining Barra, during Qualcomm’s keynote was Thomas Tang, head of Xiaomi’s Mi Lab. He showed Mi VR standalone and said “It shares the core hardware with Oculus Go. It’s based on the Xiaomi VR platform and supports the Oculus Mobile SDK. This allows existing Oculus developers to bring their VR content to Chinese users. We’ll have more details to share soon.” 

Oculus Go will be out in early 2018.