The fit is the first thing that comes to my mind. After eight years, Meta's virtual reality headsets are usually large and heavy. The Quest Pro rests around my head, with its battery shifting to a back mount and its electronics covering my face. It is a big step forward for the biggest virtual reality headset maker around.
I know where that step is going, but I don't know where it landed. The $1,499 version of the Meta Quest 2 is called the Quest Pro and it improves on the headset in many ways. Eye tracking and a high-resolution color video feed blur the line between virtual and augmented reality. It is thought that the Quest Pro will allow Meta to enter a professional-oriented virtual reality market.
"This is the highest-end VR device for enthusiasts, the prosumer, the sort of people who are trying to get work done." The Quest Pro will be put in a high-end category.
The Meta Quest Pro seems to be more geared towards testing next-gen technology than filling specific needs. The headset will ship on October 25th. It is not clear how strong a case Meta will make for a device with pragmatic benefits for many businesses. There is a hit to battery life that could make the Quest Pro less attractive to some customers.
The high end of virtual reality is no longer ceded to companies like Valve or Varjo. The internal specifications of the Meta Quest 2 have been changed by the headset. It is 722 grams heavier than the Quest 2, but it is much better balanced. The optional Elite Strap adds an extra 173 grams or more to the weight. The screens are 1800 x 1920 and have a maximum 90Hz refresh rate, which is more contrast than the Quest 2's. The Varjo headset has a high-definition screen that beats the Quest Pro. The combination of better baseline specifications and specialized new features pushes it out of the comfort zone.
There are cameras covering every part of this thing.
Meta Reality Labs has a thoughtful industrial design as well as some new features. The headset lets you choose how much light it blocks out, so you can get a little peripheral vision and a lot of space under your eyes.
The Touch controllers have been replaced with a new design. You can buy a set of the controllers for $299 if you want to use them with the other titles. They don't have a thick ring of LEDs anymore. The cameras on the headset are similar to the ones on Magic Leap's controllers. If they slip outside the range of the cameras, they won't lose track. It's possible to hold them upside-down, replace the wrist strap at the bottom with a tiny stylus nub, and place them against a hard surface to draw in virtual reality. You might want to invest in a box for accessories since the stylus is just begging to get lost in a desk drawer.
The old tracking rings were replaced by a small camera on top. A photo was taken by Adi Robertson.
There are more cameras, a charging point, and an optional stylus attachment if you flip the controller over. A photo was taken by Adi Robertson.
The controllers don't chew through disposable batteries anymore. Meta told me that it didn't want to change because it didn't like the idea of plugging the controllers in. The issue has been solved with a charging dock that is the size of a small plate, which holds both the headset and the chargers while you are not using them. You can still use the headset while it's charging, and it supports hand tracking, so you won't be using those controllers all the time.
The free-sliding lens that you can change to match the width between your eyes is one of the most popular features of the original virtual reality headset. You have to reach in and slide the lens themselves to focus instead of using a lever at the bottom, but it is complemented with a digital scale that tells you the exact IPD.
The whole fit process has been upgraded. The Elite Strap that tightens with a wheel is what Meta has used in its new headsets. In a 90-minute set of demos with the device, it was light enough that I didn't notice any issues.
The eye tracking is used to make sure your headset fits. If you want to tilt the headset or adjust the focus, you have to go through a process. At one point in my demo, I was told that I had messed up my headset. They seemed to be a good addition to the headset for casual users.
It's a little bit strange to look at anavatar mirror.
New possibilities can be opened up by the inward-facing cameras. Meta allows the headset to detect many of your facial expressions, like smiling, wrinkling your nose, and raising your eyebrows, just like you, so you can wear it on your head. I had never noticed tongue motion or lip biting before, but it doesn't detect some more subtle quirks. The cameras finally realize the dream of full-foveated rendering that sharpens images just where you're looking, a feature that will be in Sony's PS Virtual Reality 2.
I don't think passthrough is as realistic as seeing the world in person. The Quest Pro works well from my limited experience. The upgraded screen and color cameras make it easy to see what's around you. It's nice if you want to use a mostly virtual experience without losing your situational awareness, and that's whatHorizon Workrooms does, it gives you virtual screens and whiteboards for a home office.
The biggest selling point of the Quest Pro may be the fact that it has a comfort level that has never been achieved before. I can't say for sure, but I think it beats its cheaper counterpart.
The battery life of the Meta Quest Pro is not very good. The headset would last between one and two hours on a single charge, then take around two hours to charge, either on the dock or with a cable, according to the instructions I was given. I did not experience the limits firsthand because my demo was held at a number of different stations. It takes less than an hour to play the game, which lasts two to three hours. You can't just swap out the battery and keep going, it's not easy to remove the back-mounted battery.
It's possible that you end up wired to your computer.
The flexibility of the Quest Pro is narrow. The batteries and swappable ones are offered by Magic Leap and other enterprise companies. If you use Workrooms, you can plug the Quest Pro headset in if you are sitting at a desk, but it might only allow you to walk around for a short period of time.
Meta has agreements with a number of companies to promote the Quest Pro as a simulation training device, a 3D design tool, or a virtual meeting room. My experiences mostly involved casual games and pure tech demos, so I don't know if it's worth it. There was an updated Toybox play space with amazing versions of Jenga and Operation. A painting tool filled a real-world room with brushes and an easel and let me trace over a copy of Starry Night in order to remind me that I am notVincent van Gogh. A virtual person displayed their facial expression.
Third-party virtual travel app Wooorld was one of the demos. A DJ tool from Tribe XR was the only professional application that Meta had. It feels like a virtual office. My virtual screens crashed every time I tried to use PowerPoint, despite the clear screens of the Quest Pro, and even the small text on pages like Google Search is fuzzy.
I believe that some businesses will use the Quest Pro, and that the partnership with Microsoft will offer important enterprise features. My initial impression, though, is that Meta might find the greatest value in letting developers play around with new tech, not pushing a full-fledged professional platform like Magic Leap.
The situation suggests that Meta is trying to see what people do with eye tracking and passthrough augmented reality before it's too late. In the long term, expression tracking, a svelter stylus tool, and a more powerful processor will all benefit from being used in virtual reality. There is a chance that a compromise can be found in a second-gen Quest Pro.
Meta might be trying to get ahead of Apple, which is rumored to be planning a virtual reality / augmented reality headset. Apple has a leg up in bringing productivity into a headset because it makes the devices many people use already. While it has a long history of building operating systems, Meta is still using an OS that is based on an older version of the Linux operating system. It needs to win over developers first.
Meta has a variety of mixed reality initiatives. The Reality Labs work is divided into four categories: "metaverse" platforms, virtual reality, augmented reality, and neural interface hardware The Quest Pro seems like a practice run for whatever is coming next, since it is the only one that has made a real consumer impact.
Alex Heath reports additional reports.
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