LG

LG
Information
Type	Public
Industry	Consumer electronics
Founded	1958 (as GoldStar)
Founder	Koo In-hwoi
Headquarters	Seoul, South Korea
Notable Personnel	Lyu Jae-cheol (CEO)
Products	LG 360 VR, LG SteamVR headset (prototype)
Parent	LG Corporation
Website	https://www.lg.com

LG, formally LG Electronics, is a South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer and a subsidiary of the LG Corporation conglomerate. The company traces its roots to GoldStar, founded in 1958 by Koo In-hwoi, and took its current name in 1995 after GoldStar merged with affiliated businesses; it is headquartered in Seoul. Although best known for televisions, smartphones, and home appliances, LG made several attempts to enter the Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality market between 2016 and 2024, none of which produced a lasting commercial product.

LG's XR history spans three distinct phases: the LG 360 VR, a tethered mobile headset released in 2016 for the LG G5 smartphone; a SteamVR PC headset developed with Valve and shown in 2017 but never sold; and a 2024 partnership with Meta to build a high-end mixed reality device, which collapsed within months. By late 2024 the company had disbanded its dedicated XR product organization and moved any remaining work into research and development.

History

Company background

LG Electronics began in 1958 as GoldStar, established by Koo In-hwoi in the years after the Korean War to produce domestic consumer electronics and appliances for South Korea. GoldStar merged with Lucky Chemical and other group businesses in early 1995, and the combined electronics company was renamed LG Electronics in March of that year. It remains a subsidiary of the LG Corporation holding company and is based in the Yeouido district of Seoul.

LG 360 VR (2016)

LG's first virtual reality product was the LG 360 VR, introduced in 2016 to promote the company's LG G5 flagship smartphone. Unlike the Samsung Gear VR and similar designs that slotted a phone into the headset to act as the screen, the 360 VR had its own built-in dual displays and connected to the G5 by a cable, drawing power and content from the phone. The compact, glasses-like form factor was unusual for the era and the headset weighed roughly 118 grams, far lighter than rival goggles, but reviewers criticized its narrow 80-degree field of view, modest per-eye resolution, and thin software library. The device was discontinued without a direct successor.

Valve SteamVR headset (2017)

On February 27, 2017, LG announced that it was working with Valve on a head-mounted PC VR device built around Valve's SteamVR Tracking technology and the OpenVR platform. This made LG the first major manufacturer after HTC to follow Valve's open blueprint for third-party SteamVR headsets, giving the device access to the same Steam content ecosystem as the Vive. A prototype was demonstrated at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in March 2017.

The prototype used a single OLED panel delivering 1440x1280 pixels per eye at a 540 PPI pixel density, with a 90Hz refresh rate, a 110-degree field of view, and convex non-Fresnel lenses. Its most distinctive feature was a flip-up visor mounted on a PlayStation VR style "halo" head strap, which let wearers raise the display without removing the whole headset. A trademark filing with the European Union Intellectual Property Office in October 2017 suggested the product would be branded "UltraGear" and commercialized in 2018. The headset never reached market, and the project was quietly abandoned, joining the many cancelled VR hardware efforts of the period.

Meta partnership (2024)

LG returned to XR in early 2024. On February 28, 2024, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with LG Electronics leadership in Seoul, and the two companies announced plans to jointly develop next-generation XR devices, including a high-end mixed reality headset targeted for the first half of 2025 to compete with the Apple Vision Pro. The plan called for LG to supply hardware and its global sales network while the headset ran Meta's Horizon operating system, the same software used in the Meta Quest Pro.

The collaboration unravelled quickly. By May 2024, roughly three months after the announcement, reports said LG had asked to end the partnership, with an industry source attributing the split to strategic differences and limited synergy between the two firms. Later coverage indicated LG explored alternatives, with Amazon floated as a possible content partner.

Closure of the XR division (2024)

LG disbanded its dedicated XR product organization in late 2024. The company confirmed the move to South Korean outlet The Bell in March 2025, saying the development team within its HE business division had been dissolved and that research was continuing inside the CTO division instead. LG stated that it had decided to delay commercialization and focus on R&D. As of 2026, LG sells no virtual or augmented reality hardware.

Products

Product	Year	Type	Status	Notable specs and notes
LG 360 VR	2016	Tethered mobile VR headset	Discontinued	Built-in dual displays; tethered to the LG G5 by cable; ~118 g; 80-degree field of view; 60Hz; 3DoF
LG SteamVR headset ("UltraGear")	2017 (shown)	PC VR headset (SteamVR)	Cancelled	Prototype with Valve; single OLED panel, 1440x1280 per eye, 90Hz, 110-degree FOV; flip-up visor; never released
Meta MR headset (unnamed)	2024 (planned)	Mixed reality headset	Cancelled	Joint effort with Meta running Horizon OS; targeted first half of 2025; partnership ended within months

Market position

LG never established a sustained presence in the VR or AR market despite repeated attempts across nearly a decade. Its sole shipping headset, the LG 360 VR, was a commercial and critical disappointment, and both of its later flagship efforts, the SteamVR headset with Valve and the mixed reality device with Meta, were cancelled before launch. By contrast, South Korean rival Samsung re-entered the high-end space in this period with its Android XR headset, leaving LG without a comparable consumer product as it redirected XR work into research and development.