News Samsung unveils HMD Odyssey Windows Mixed Reality headset

No AR, the cameras are not passthrough cameras. Like the other Windows MR HMDs, this is VR only.

 

The only thing that's mixed is the messages in the term 'mixed reality'

 

Microsoft decided that they needed one banner to release all their HMDs under, and grabbed the technical term 'Mixed Reality' (that encompasses the spectrum of Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Augmented Virtuality, and just actual Reality) and used it as a marketing slogan. But the only Windows MR the majority of people can conceivably buy (i.e. unless you want to splash out thousands on Hololens) are VR HMDs.


::EDIT::

This new Samsung HMD is basically the creme-de-la-creme if you want a HMD to act as a 'virtual desktop' environment on a long-haul flight or hotel room or train (or if you're brave, on a bus) without dragging around a suitcase full of monitors. It has a higher angular resolution than anything else available without compromising on FoV and/or using full-persistence LCD panels (as the other Windows MR HMDs do, which will result in blurring/smearing during head motion). And for seated-and-looking-relative-slowly-between-virtual-monitors movement without the need for motion controllers the inside-out tracking is of acceptable performance and the lack of external tracking cameras a functional benefit.

If you want something to use for the same high-movement applications as a Rift or Vive, then it can be dismissed as readily as the other Windows MR HMDs due to the tracking.