The still-young virtual reality headset wars have a new competitor, though it's being sold as more of a "mixed reality" solution than purely VR. At the Intel Developer Forum today, the company announced Project Alloy, an untethered headset that packs everything into a single head-mounted display without the need for a PC or a mobile phone.

In addition to the battery, display, and computing resources needed to run the headset, Project Alloy will also include Intel's Real Sense motion tracking system, which will use cameras and sensors to map the world around you and track your hands without the need for gloves or handheld controllers. The system can also see real-world objects and integrate them into the virtual world, as shown in a demo where the user opened a real door and saw his boss' face appear in the virtual world (hence the "mixed reality" moniker Intel stressed in its presentation).

Alloy will be integrated with Microsoft's Windows Holographic platform, which will itself be available on all Windows 10 PCs next year. Intel also said it plans to release the Alloy hardware specs under an open source license at some point, letting others essentially use it as a reference design for their own hardware.

The Alloy announcement immediately called to mind the similar AMD-powered Sulon Q headset, announced back in March as an all-in-one VR headset with inside-out untethered tracking. As with that headset, we're somewhat skeptical that Alloy will be able to deliver a powerful, high-fidelity VR experience without encountering weight and heat-dissipation issues. In any case, it's an ambitious direction for Intel to take and an interesting new development in what's shaping up to be a crowded headset marketplace.