The best thing about Galaxy XR was never announced

There are many reasons why Samsung Galaxy XR is the first VR headset I’ve actually wanted, but the best thing about it is something that neither Samsung nor Google felt the need to highlight. This is the most open, unrestricted headset on the market today—a device I can truly make my own.

You can sideload any APK

Samsung Galaxy XR runs Android XR, a version of Android adapted for extended reality. In other words, it’s Android for your face. If you’ve ever used an Android phone before, the interface takes seconds to learn, and it is both remarkably similar and also different in the best of ways.

As an Android device, you can install nearly any Android app from the Play Store. Not only that—you can open your browser, download an APK, and, more than likely, it will just work. This means alternate apps stores like F-Droid are available, and I can easily install its various open source Android apps that aren't on the Play Store. Most Android apps appear in floating windows without developers having to do anything special to support Android XR. Apps simply work by default.

Galaxy XR is not the first Android-based headset. Meta Quest headsets are also based on Android. Those devices, however, don’t come with access to the Play Store, and they won’t just run any APK out of the box. Instead, you need to download third-party apps like Mobile VR Station to make the magic happen. Even then, apps won’t appear in the app drawer alongside your other software and are instead relegated to their own separate section.

You can enable developer options like any other Android device

Android is very simple out of the box, but there is incredible power afforded to those who like to tinker or who aren’t afraid of breaking their device. By enabling Android's developer options, you unlock a wide realm of possibilities. You can sideload APKs directly from a separate computer. You can delete any app you might consider bloatware. The list goes on.

On most Android devices, you can enable developer options by tapping "build number" in the "About phone" section of system settings several times in a row. It’s like discovering a hidden cheat code in a game. On Galaxy XR, you can access developer options in the same way.

In contrast, to enable developer mode on a Meta Quest headset, you need to first create a Meta account and register as a developer. Want to enable developer mode on an Apple Vision Pro? Be prepared to download Xcode on a compatible Mac.

The bootloader is unlocked

Many people who want full ownership of a device will wipe away the restricted software it came with and install an alternate operating system that allows them to do whatever they want. In phone world, this is known as installing a custom ROM. To do this, you need to first be able to unlock the bootloader. Not all phone makers let you unlock their phones, which is why the list of devices supported by LineageOS, the most popular custom Android ROM, isn’t longer than it is.

While you can’t unlock the bootloader on modern Samsung phones, you can unlock it on Galaxy XR. That’s because while this device is already a fully functional piece of hardware, it’s still a showcase piece of tech aimed at early adopters and developers. Google wants people using this hardware to develop software and expand on what the Android XR ecosystem is capable of, and that involves giving developers the freedom to do whatever they might want.

We may eventually see custom ROMs

While unlocking a bootloader is required in order to install a custom ROM, you need more than that in order to actually make one. For that, you need the kernel files that enable your Android ROM to actually communicate with and control the hardware you’re trying to run. Fortunately, Samsung has already released open source kernel files for Galaxy XR.

Are we likely to see custom ROMs for Galaxy XR anytime soon? Probably not. Relatively few people have Galaxy XR headsets, which cost nearly two grand. There aren’t that many developers to pull from and users to target. But this means that Galaxy XR is a device built in a way that, as more units sell and the Android XR ecosystem continues to grow, a community can step in to support and maintain even after Google and Samsung stop pushing out updates.

Samsung Galaxy XR is easily the most open XR headset yet, and that makes it a device I can feel comfortable investing in. The hardware as it exists today has a decent life ahead of it even if Google were to lose interest after a year. Galaxy XR is far less restricted than a Meta Quest headset or the Apple Vision Pro.

Yet the landscape is about to change, and the Stream Frame may soon take the open crown. While Galaxy XR is about as open as a consumer Android device can be, Valve’s upcoming VR headset will run Linux. Whether Linux apps are as compelling to use on a VR headset, well, that’s a different question entirely.