In 2005, Samsung obtained a patent to use a mobile device as a head-mounted display. This led to the release of the Gear VR in November of 2015. The Gear VR is designed to work with Samsung's flagship smartphones, with an integrated calibration wheel and trackpad for user interaction.

The Oculus-compatible Samsung device supports Motion to Photon (MTP) with latency less than 20 ms, optimized hardware and kernel, and higher-resolution rendering for the 96 degree field of view for the first three models, and 101 degree for the SM-R323 and beyond.