Qualcomm and ODM Goertek have built the reference design for Qualcomm's virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD), which will be available to manufacturers this year. Powered by the Snapdragon 820 chip, the Snapdragon VR820 reference platform will be available by the fourth quarter of 2016 -- enabling manufacturers to potentially bring it to market ahead of Intel's Project Alloy headset.

The headset includes integrated eye tracking with two cameras, dual front-facing cameras for six degrees of freedom and see-through applications and four microphones. It also comes with gyro, accelerometer and magnetometer sensors.

Qualcomm expects several of its OEM customers to roll out commercial products quickly after the reference design is made available.

By comparison, Intel's all-in-one reference design for a "merged reality" headset, called Project Alloy, will be available to developers and OEM partners in 2017.