IEEE P2048-1 is the part of the IEEE 2048 virtual and augmented reality standards series that establishes device taxonomy and definitions: a common vocabulary for classifying VR, AR, and mixed-reality hardware — head-mounted displays, handheld and projection systems, tracking and input devices — together with the defining attributes of each category. By fixing shared terminology and classification criteria, it gives the sibling parts of the series, regulators, and procurement specifications a consistent language for describing immersive devices and their capabilities.
Semantic Classification
Content
Definition
IEEE P2048-1 is the foundational terminology part of the IEEE P2048 series on virtual and augmented reality. Its scope is deliberately definitional rather than technical: it classifies the device landscape of immersive computing — tethered and standalone head-mounted displays, optical and video see-through AR devices, handheld and projection-based systems, tracking apparatus, and input peripherals — and states, for each class, the attributes that distinguish it (display method, degrees of freedom, field of view, tracking modality, and interaction capability).
Standardised taxonomy matters because the immersive-technology market has grown up with vendor-specific and inconsistent language: terms such as “mixed reality”, “6DoF”, or “passthrough AR” are used with materially different meanings across product lines, which frustrates interoperability requirements, comparative benchmarking, safety guidance, and regulation. P2048-1 provides the reference vocabulary that the other parts of the 2048 series build on — including the quality-metric and format parts and the person-identification work in IEEE P2048-3 — so that a requirement written against one part resolves to the same device semantics in another.
Within the wider standards ecosystem, the part complements rather than competes with technical interoperability specifications: Khronos OpenXR standardises the API surface between applications and runtimes, and MPEG addresses coded representation of immersive media, whereas P2048-1 fixes what the devices themselves are called and how their capabilities are described. It thus plays the same role for XR hardware that terminology standards such as ISO/IEC 2382 played for general information technology.
Current Landscape
A status correction is warranted. The project is formally designated IEEE P2048.1 (dot, not hyphen), “Standard for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality: Device Taxonomy and Definitions”, under the CES/SC VR/AR Working Group (VRARWG). Its Project Authorization Request (PAR) was approved on 7 December 2016 with an expiry of 31 December 2020, and IEEE working-group records list its status as abolished — i.e. the original standalone device-taxonomy project lapsed rather than reaching publication. The VRARWG’s public page still lists P2048.1 among standards “in development”, so the part is best described as inactive/unpublished rather than a finished standard.
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Series reorganisation (2023-2025): the IEEE 2048 family has been substantially recast around the metaverse. A new PAR, P2048 “Standard for Metaverse: Terminology, Definitions, and Taxonomy”, was approved on 15 February 2023 (Active PAR), effectively re-hosting the terminology/taxonomy role the older device-taxonomy part was meant to fill.
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What has actually published: unlike P2048.1, adjacent work has shipped — e.g. IEEE 2048.101-2023, “Augmented Reality on Mobile Devices: General Requirements for Software Framework, Components, and Integration”.
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External positioning: ETSI’s Augmented Reality Framework (GR ARF 012, v2.1.1, February 2026) references the IEEE 2048.x series among immersive-media taxonomy and quality-metric efforts, confirming the series’ liaison role even where individual parts remain unpublished.
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Complementary standards: Khronos OpenXR (application/runtime API) and MPEG immersive-media coding cover interoperability layers that the 2048 terminology work does not.
Sources:
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https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_gr/ARF/001_099/012/02.01.01_60/gr_ARF012v020101p.pdf