mark-zuckerberg-project-cam — Image courtesy Meta, Mark Zuckerberg

Zuckerberg: Next Meta VR Headset Confirmed for October Release

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Aug 25, 2022

Although Meta previously confirmed it would launch Project Cambria sometime this year, it wasn’t clear exactly when we’d be seeing the release of what many hypothesize could be dubbed Meta Quest Pro. Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the company is releasing its next headset in October, which likely means Cambria/Quest Pro is right around the corner.

“For the next device that’s coming out in October, there are a few big features,” Zuckerberg said, speaking to Joe Rogan at the beginning of the nearly three-hour podcast.

The Meta CEO was careful not to name the device, although the feature description and launch window make it undoubtedly Project Cambria that’s being discussed here.

“The one you’re talking about, basically social presence, and the ability to now have eye contact in virtual reality, have your face be tracked so that way your avatar is not just like this still thing, but if you smile or if you frown or if you pout—or whatever your expression is—to actually have that, in real time, translated to your avatar… obviously our facial expressions are […] huge; there’s more nonverbal communication when people are with each other than verbal communication,” Zuckerberg said.

Project Cambria | Image courtesy Meta

Project Cambria is the company’s next high-end standalone VR headset, which is notably kitted with color passthrough sensors which allow it to do augmented reality stuff like playing immersive games and social experiences in the setting of your own living room.

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Like Zuckerberg mentioned in the JRE podcast, the headset is also dialing in on social presence thanks to eye and facial tracking, something that will see the high-end device priced at “significantly higher” than $800, putting it more in the realm of enthusiasts and developers.

There’s still a ton to learn about Cambria (likely Quest Pro) in the coming weeks, as we still don’t have a clear idea of headset’s internals—and that’s despite a prominent alleged leak from Bradley Lynch that suggest the following specs:

2,160 x 2,160 MiniLED Backlit LCD Panels (2)
Custom Pancake Lenses (2)
16MP Color Camera for Color Passthrough
Eye + Face Tracking (IR Camera based)
Qualcomm XR2+ Gen 1 SoC
12GB LPDDR5 RAM
256GB SSD
WiFi 6E Support
~5000 mAh battery

Again, we can’t verify these claims, so please take it with a grain of salt as we await official news over the next few weeks before its October launch.

This story is breaking. Check back for more info as we receive it.

Nothing to see here

Zuck continues to raise the creep factor to infinity. Great, now when I pop on my Quest headset late at night to escape to a peaceful virtual space, complete strangers can come up to me and see my tired, surprised, uncomfortable expression … and judge me.
Well done!
- Guest
  
  We know just the snake-oil medicine for your specific issue, cheap! But first you have to pay only an extra $500 for this device that will diagnose your problem!
  - Nothing to see here
    
    Yep I am sure we will all be attacked by quack medicine doc bots and Indiegogo scam bots the moment we step into the Metaverse.
  - Andrew Jakobs
    
    Except the new Meta headset is more targeted at business and enthousiasts, not mainstream, that’ll be the Quest 3 by the end of next year.
- Bob
  
  Quest doesn’t have face tracking so this so-called “creep factor” of yours effectively remains the same.
  - Nothing to see here
    
    The story is about the next Quest headset.
    - Anonymous
      
      The reasoning makes no sense.
      We don’t even know how capable the face tracking is.
      
      And if you need companionship when tired, hurt, you have to let them in to get the real help or advice you need.
- Charles
  
  I’m sure there will be an option to turn off that feature.
  - Nothing to see here
    
    But that’s the entire reason for the headset and Meta itself according to Zuckerberg. It’s all about social but his idea of social is just awful.
xyzs

I really hope eye tracking will help deliver much higher end graphics and that the black levels are going to be way deeper than quest 2, because if not, why the long wait and price bump ?
- Andy Prokhorov
  
  So you could chat with your friend looking like an octopus, isn’t that obvious?
- Adam Collins
  
  Q2 black levels are because of the display panel tech, not really a rendering issue that can be solved with eye tracking…..only changes in display panels can, which is occurring so expect much much better black levels on future headsets.
- Sven Viking
  
  According to leaks it’s using mini-LED backlighting, which should presumably help a lot.
  - Andy Prokhorov
    
    That’s true. But the first IBM PC (16 KB (that’s right, kilobytes) RAM, CGA, no hard drives) was priced at $1,565. Electronic things are expected to become better it time, MUCH better, but without proportional price hikes.
    - Jistuce
      
      But computer technology right now isn’t advancing as fast as computer technology was back then.
      
      The IBM 5150 also wasn’t constrained by the need to be small, light, and battery-powered. For that comparison, we have the Milton-Bradley Microvision, released the same year as Mattel’s Intellivision and VASTLY inferior.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Sure. Just saying you can’t expect prices to grow proportionally to capabilities.
  - Derek Kent
    
    “help a lot” isn’t good enough. it either has black or it doesn’t.
    - Andy Prokhorov
      
      OLED screens did produce true black but had other drawbacks, so it’s always a compromise. There is no such thing as absolute perfectness in real products. And “better blacks” is still better than “poor blacks.”
      - Derek Kent
        
        No. A display can reproduce black (and all the implications thereof) or it cannot.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Well, in this case feel free to not look at any LCD screens since none of them can reproduce true black.
      - Derek Kent
        
        I try not to.
    - Sven Viking
      
      I don’t have one on hand so we’ll need to wait for impressions I guess. Incidentally most OLED headsets keep pixels slightly lit to avoid black smear so don’t display true black either, but some do (or in some there may be hacks to force it).
- VR5
  
  Quest already has fixed foveated rendering. A natural evolution would be to unfix and align that with your viewpoint so you don’t see the blurry parts anymore.
  
  If it is low enough latency to not be noticed, devs also could aggressively raise foveated rendering to achieve better performance. So devs would have to patch their games to check for eye tracking support and adjust foveated rendering accordingly. New games could do this from the start.
  
  Questions are, (1) how much performance can actually be gained that way. You can take a look at games that already have high ffr settings (don’t ask me, I don’t have a list). The graphics at the center are what can realistically be achieved. And (2) is it low latency enough to actually not be noticed.
sfmike

It’s interesting how from this design how little Meta feels that decent audio is important to the VR experience. I guess we all will have to spend more money on headphones due to their lack of intelligent design.
- XRC
  
  Yes audio is very underrated, but so critical to providing a convincing experience:-
  
  “Sound is what truly convinces the mind is in a place; in other words, ‘hearing is believing.’ “Jesse Schell (Video game designer) .
  
  “If you talk to any director, they’ll say music is fifty percent of the movie.” Hans Zimmer (Film score composer)
- Andy Prokhorov
  
  Well, Logitech promises to help with that. :)
sebrk

It’s annoying that Meta is the only company doing this right
- Andy Prokhorov
  
  Right for what? Facebook VR? Autonomous headset would never be a match for an even a relatively decent PC, so there is no point in all those gigabytes that just needlessly add to the cost. And you don’t need to track your face playing a videogame — another expensive useless feature. To do it RIGHT is to cut all the unnecessary bells and whistles and make a product that’s extremely good with a single, the only important task: playing Steam VR games.
  - MeowMix
    
    I mean if VR = Gaming, then you’re probably correct.
    
    But many of us want VR to finally evolve beyond gaming; I’m hopeful for Cambria’s Mixed Reality and work uses cases.
    - ChillnWitDylan
      
      You are right Meowmix, but lets say VR just equals gaming. Then the ability to track eye and facial motions better directly results in an entirely new toolbox for devs to create interactions with assets. Plus with where developers are currently at with VR games there is not a single thing on the market that you couldn’t use a 2080 on which this is more powerful than according to leaks. Plus obviously this person does not use full body tracking otherwise the thought of being standalone and would have made him jump for joy so instead let him press a and live in the past where all he wants is better resolution and refresh not full gaming immersion.
      - Anonymous
        
        Absolutely correct. The type of person he is who only think in linear fashion poisoning the entire VR growth and potential future application for others.
        
        If one only cares about gaming, why bother looking at Quest series? Go get a Pimax.
        No money? Then why even play PC games?
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        So, are you saying only losers that have no money to buy Pimax are buying Quest? LOL
      - namekuseijin
        
        terrific thread from old graphics whores…
        
        little reminder to you that kids grown on Habbo, Minecraft, Roblox, Rec Room and the likes absolutely don’t care for such BS. they don’t even relate graphics development to historical chip limitations, it’s all just different styles to them…
        
        you all for the past 6 years or so often needing to resort to potato graphics or subpar resolution and framerates just to try to play some games in VR should be ashamed…
      - ViRGiN
        
        some people are still dead set on that a powerful graphic cards means a BETTER VR EXPERIENCE. no, shitty pcvr games remain shitty uninspired indie games, just now rendered in 4k or whatever.
        
        these discussions are unchanged for years. “what do you mean there is nothing to play on pcvr? i have more games than time to finish them. alyx, flight simulator, robo recall, hot dogs, skyrim” etc.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        1. Eye tracking is definitely helpful and actually does not require any support in applications, could be handled completely in the engine. That’s if we’re talking about framerates and resolutions. But if you’re talking about “what are you looking at?!” moments (and smiles/frowning), sure, it would be interesting in games. But no developer would implement such thing in a meaningful matter until it becomes mainstream. So for now it’s pretty much useless.
        
        2. Qualcomm XR2+ Gen 1 is 1.3 TFLOPS, RTX 2080 is 10 TFLOPS. You don’t need to be Einstein to realize that NVidia would be bankrupt a long time ago if your assertion was even remotely true.
        
        3. Full body tracking is a wonderful thing. But it has absolutely nothing to do with either mouth tracking or onboard processing. As a matter of fact, companies like KAT VR do offer solutions that allow actually walk, jump, and crouch in VR. Alas, they work with Steam only.
    - Andy Prokhorov
      
      Beyond gaming to WHAT? To chat with cartoonish characters in a cartoonish room? Sure, there are legitimate uses for VR beyond games. Like 3D design, for example. But none of them require imitating your grin or relying on necessarily underpowered onboard processor. Then need essentially the same as games: fast hi-res rendering and precise tracking. Good binaural sound would be a big plus to some of them too. Whatever the activity, business or pleasure, you’re doing something in a virtual world. What you don’t need is to communicate with other people in “metaverse” or being far away from your gaming or business PC.
      - WIBoomer1
        
        Augmented Virtual Reality is going to supersede all this. But it will take time. Imagine, that you don’t need a workstation to do your work, that a virtual keyboard and mouse could replace a real one….that data could be displayed for only you, so someone can’t peek over your shoulder to see what is being worked on. And when you are done, you would disconnect from work and do personal stuff on it. all in the compact eyeglass-like device. you’d wirelessly recharge the device overnight, just like our current state of the art mobile devices. There’s so many untapped practical applications for such a device, we can’t imagine them all.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        1. This kind of augmented reality is nothing more than good cameras. Nobody argues about that — but that doesn’t require face capturing or onboard processing.
        2. Virtual keyboard, are you serious? After outrage over Apples butterfly keyboard.
        3. Data displayed only for you and your boss, you mean?
        4. Ever tried to do personal stuff on a company issued laptop or phone? If so, you’re an adventurous guy.
      - CaryMGVR
        
        The kind of AR you’re talking about is so far away from existing
        that it’s not even worth talking about yet. lol
      - Adam Collins
        
        i moved across the country, i use VR to have meetups with friends from back home. we have watch parties for shows we like and keep a hanging out vibe despite being thousands of miles apart. having more detailed facial expressions to see things like shock at a scene would make this an even better experience.
        
        The quests mobility is a convenience….i do play alot of games on my PC with it, but since i got the quest 2, i honestly mostly just play the onboard games i have. also, with the quest 2, i can link up with shadow cloud pc service and run decent mobile pc vr titles if i have proper internet…..but that requires the headset to have a degree of autonomy to do.
        
        Youre also ignoring that one of the(if not the) most used VR app is VRChat, which is social focused and would benefit from these features.
        
        Youre confusing you dont want or need it with the market doesnt want or need it. The market very much wants these features.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Or maybe you’re confusing you want or need something with the market wants or needs it.
        
        But the thing is, a lot of people might consider $300 thing for chatting. But much much less people would be willing to spend $1000+ for such nonsense.
        
        The success of Quest 2 was determined by its price that allowed to play many popular games with an acceptable quality without the need for a $2000 PC. Plus, at the same time, it did allow for PC playing with arguably better graphics that Valve Index — IF you already have that $2000 PC. Cambria will be priced out of the rich of the former market segment and might be not good enough for the latter.
        
        I mean. I don’t mind all the bloat (both hard and soft) ware I don’t use that is bundled with a headset. As long as does what I need right. But if Index 2 would do a noticeably better job than Quest 3, I’d go with Valve. And people who want just chatting would fine something else costing $300 or less.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        I think it’s YOU who is mistaken what the market wants, it’s YOU who wants a dumb headset only for PCVR, not the market, as there won’t be (m)any new headset that isn’t capable if running standalone.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        You’re certainly entitled to your own opinion. Just don’t try to present it as some kind of universal truth.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        I’m merely pointing out what you accuse me of. The succes of the Quest, and release of the coming headsets ALL being standalone, except for the gaming only targeted PSVR2, shows the mainstream market wants standalone and don’t really care about the graphics not being as great as (expensive highend) PCVR. Yeah ofcourse everybody would want highend PCVR graphics, but the GPU’s to drive that are way to expensive at this point in time.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        The success of the Quest is due to its cheap price, that’s it. A cheap PCVR alternative to Vive and Index, to be precise. More that 2/3 of headsets connected to Steam are Oculus products, and about half is Quest 2 (and that’s January data, today’s figures should be much higher). That’s why Facebook abandoned standalone only Oculus Go and invested in Quest with Oculus Link.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        Uhm, no they didn’t abandoned standalone on the Go, it just was getting too old. And the Quest 2 is popular due to it being cheap, but also as a standalone headset, it’s the combination why it’s such a succes (in relative terms). Software sales of the Quest store are excellent.
      - kool
        
        If they market didn’t care about graphics quest would have sold more than 10 mil. People do care that’s VR is still a niche market. The reason the cambria exist is to try to squeeze more power out of the quest. Y’all kill me with this market talk and how the quest is killing it. VR is such a blip on the map on gaming, we have no clue what consumers want yet, but clearly most don’t want to strap low Poly Google’s to their face.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        Not really, as the Nintendo Switch also shows that people don’t see graphics as that important otherwise the Switch wouldn’t have sold so many units.
        In VR the quest is the best sold headset till date, so it does show people don’t really care about the graphics, ofcourse people would like to have much better graphics, but so do they want it on PC and consoles.
        VR is still a niche, but last time I checked on steam it’s still even a bigger market then MacOS or Linux. VR will certainly be a small market in the gaming market for a long time, maybe always, but looking at that market share, the Quest is what made it a larger share, nit the Index, not the Vives.
      - GunnyNinja
        
        The Switch was targeted at kids, not the VR market. Why are you mentioning it here? Did the cardboard wow you?
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        I mention it because it was said that people want AAA graphics for buying the product, but Switch (and back then the Wii) proved otherwise. The Switch isn’t targeted at kids.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Quest 2 does produce top notch graphics WHEN it is connected to PC, whether over cable or wirelessly over Air Link. Put simply, it’s one of the best PCVR headsets and by way the least expensive PCVR headset on the market. (And PCVR is, for all intents and purposes, means SteamVR.) Nobody really cares about its standalone capabilities (and everybody positively HATES its Facebook connection). if it was SteamVR ONLY, it would sell even better than now.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        That’s utter BS tgat nobody cares about its standalone capabilities, quest store sales says otherwise, they sell lots of games and games like Red matter 2 shows it certainly is capable of providing decent graphics (if the engine is really tailored/optimized for the hardware).
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        OK, I exaggerated a bit. There is a segment buying Quest 2 for its standalone capabilities. But who are those people? No sane person would play an inferior Q2 version of a game when able to play a superior PC version in the same wireless manner over Air Link. All the same except much better graphics.
        
        Do you see the point? That standalone crowd is people who simply can’t afford a decent gaming PC — and thus settling for a noticeably worse experience for $300/$400. BUT — and that’s a very big but — those people, for the same budgetary reasons, would never buy a $1500 headset when they able to get pretty much the same for almost four times cheaper.
        
        Maybe someday standalone headset could produce visual quality as PCVR but Cambria isn’t that headset. For now standalone VR is a poor man’s VR. And poor people don’t buy premium products. That doesn’t mean Cambria will necessarily flop. But if it would not, it would be bough almost exclusively as a wireless PCVR headset. And that could happen only if all that social and standalone bloat comes essentially for free. Premium customers already have premium PCs, they — the potential Cambria market — aren’t interested in standalone at all.
        
        Zuckerberg would LOVE to herd this crowd with sizable expendable income into his Facebook VR advertisement machine — that’s why he bought Oculus, after all. We shell see, if he succeeds.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        The Quest 2 (and Pico Neo3) are still very good VR experiences even in standalone. And the amount of people not having a powerfull PC to drive the (PCVR) headsets is staggering high, an RTX2060 isn’t powerfull enough anymore to smoothly drive the current headsets, you will have to turn down settings.
        
        I don’t see the Quest 2 (as standalone) as a poor man’s VR, as it’s still very immersive and very fun.
        And the GPU prices have been insane high for the last couple of years, even a Rtx3060 is still too pricey IMHO (even though I would gave no problem buying an RTX3090TI at its highest price, I just think it’s ridiculous, to me any GPU above $400 is ridiculous.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Q2 standalone isn’t THAT bad, but it’s still significantly worse than even relatively cheap PCVR. It’s good enough for $300 but Cambria will cost much more. Video card prices are actually back to normal (thanks to China’s ban on crypto) so instead of Cambria — that, as I standalone, won’t be much better than Q2 — one could upgrade a decent enough PC and use it with Q2.
        
        There is simply no point buying expensive standalone headset when you can get much better experience with PCVR for comparable money.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        But then again, the cambria is not targeted at mainstream, it’s targeted at (Meta)enthousiasts and businesses, but yeah the Cambria will be underpowered IMHO for when it releases as it’ll be using a 2 year old XR2 soc (probably running at full speed instead like the Quest 2 where it’s throttled), but as far as I know Qualcomm doesn’t have an XR3 yet, unless they release it with an snapdragon 888 which has 35% better GPU performance. I’m baffled that apparently the XR2 GPU is almost twice as fast as the one in the Nintendo Switch.
        
        But I’m wondering where you can get a complete decent VR PC for below 1200 euro’s (which means at least a RTX3060 (or better a RTX3070 (not the mobile version)) or hell even for 1200 (and that’s still excluding the headset). Yeah, prices have come down, but they are still not at MSRP level or much lower as normally would be before the release of a new line.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Who are (Meta)enthusiasts? Facebook VR fanboys? And why would businesses want standalone headset, to be able to do #d design on the bench in the park? They likely don’t even need it wireless.
        
        And as I said, graphic card prices are back to normal. RTX 3080 id $730 on Amazon, RTX 3070 is $500. You can buy Core i7 for $225, motherboard for $100, 32 GB of memory also for $100. The rest comes from your old rig. Altogether $925. It won’t be the fastest machine money could buy, but it would leave any standalone headset in the dust.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        Cheapest RTX3080 here is 799 euro’s, 3070 is 599 euro’s, so there’s only 400/600 left for cpu, ram, ssd, powersupply and casing. Except for keyboard/mouse I never use anything from my old rig as the first year I keep my old rig as a backup.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        What happened to the case, PSU, and HD you already have? You didn’t play any games before VR? And if you have a laptop instead of desktop, why not buy an external video card?
        
        But in any case, stop comparing apples to oranges. XR2’s GPU is 1.267 teraflops, 3070 is 20.3 shader teraflops and 39.7 RT teraflops. Even 2070 is 7.9 shader teraflops and 23.8 RT teraflops. We’re talking completely different leagues here. Even a very old PC bought dirt cheap on eBay would outperform Cambria and provide better graphics.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        Case, PSU and SSD stay in the original build as I said. I don’t want an external GPU as I want everything in one case.
        
        But now you say stop comparing apples and oranges, but when it comes to PSVR2 you yourself are doing exactly the same thing.
        
        What do you consider a very old PC? Anything below 1060 performance can’t drive even an original Vive.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        >Case, PSU and SSD stay in the original build as I said.
        
        ROFLMAO. We’ve started talking about buyers on a tight budget and now they need a backup PC? Sorry for breaking a disturbing news, but people who settle for poor standalone quality doesn’t have backup PCs. Why do you need it at all? No, seriously.
        
        >I don’t want an external GPU as I want everything in one case.
        
        So you can’t tolerate an extra box out of sight but happily tolerate poor graphics quality. Amazing, just amazing!
        
        >when it comes to PSVR2 you yourself
        
        I never said a single word about PSVR2. Never had any PS and likely never will.
        
        >What do you consider a very old PC? Anything below 1060 performance can’t drive even an original Vive.
        
        GTX 1060 is 2016, 6 years ago. It IS very old. Just checked eBay, “NVIDIA Gaming Desktop PC Intel i5 GTX 1060 16GB Ram SSD 1TB Tempered Glass Wifi.” $450. Add $400 Q2, $50 dedicated router for Air Link — and you have a setup vastly superior to Cambria for $900.
        
        So, let me reiterate. People using standalone Q2 because they just can’t afford anything better, is understandable. But the notion of people using $1500 standalone Cambria (1.27 TFLOP) instead of much better $900 GTX 1060 setup (4.35 TFLOP) is utterly ridiculous.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        Sorry about PSVR2 reference, I mistook you for somebody else.
        
        But the cambria isn’t targeted at mainstream, so those people won’t buy an ‘old’ computer anyway.
        
        But I do think the cambria is a good solution for businesses like realestate where you can take the headset to clients much more easily. Just look at the Vive Focus 3 which seems to do pretty good in professional environments.
      - namekuseijin
        
        > I’m baffled that apparently the XR2 GPU is almost twice as fast as the one in the Nintendo Switch
        
        switch can barely handle the likes of Witcher or Doom eternal at less than half the resolution or a third the framerate of Quest. With those low requirements Quest could do better graphics too
      - namekuseijin
        
        I for one only play Quest native games. PS2-3 graphics still look good enough and not needing to bother with all the configuration, upgrading, troubleshooting and steamVR and Oculus layers trying to play well together is a huge plus.
        
        you’re acting surprised at people choosing the convenience of consoles over sheer (expensive) power.
      - kool
        
        Nintendo switch has a lot if different factors going on. A better comparison would be the n64, gamecube and wii u which sold poorly because of graphics. People do seem to compromise for portability and innovation so that’s probably why they quest sells and graphics are why it doesn’t sell a lot more.
      - namekuseijin
        
        > A better comparison would be the n64, gamecube and wii u which sold poorly because of graphics
        
        out you out of your fine mind?
        
        N64 and GC were both cutting-edge graphics of the day. they didn’t sell because Playstation 1 & 2 graphics were not that much worse, but had much larger library of titles.
        
        wii was GC-recycled 4 years later and wii U was basically PS3 at the time of PS4 – both outdated graphics and with not many games to boot. that’s why they failed.
        
        not many games and not enough good graphics, not much interest from gamers, only from easily amused people. sounds familiar, Quest?
      - kool
        
        I remember the n64 had muddy textures and foggy graphics and game cube couldn’t run gta size games. The switch library isn’t much better is just a portable gc.
      - namekuseijin
        
        still top console graphics in their era
      - kool
        
        Arguably your right but remember the n64 couldn’t do fully voiced dialogue or fmv. Not strictly graphics but its made sony games look a lot better in the commercials lol!
      - Mradr
        
        BS, I remember when the PS1 and N64 release. The PS1 had way better graphics and that is what sold me on their platform at the time. Sure, N64 had good games that kept it around, but it was sure still a night and day difference in what you were playing. With that said, both are still highly valued to me from my childhood.
      - Mradr
        
        I feel like that is a giant leap to say people don’t care about graphics. You do understand they also price different and offer different play settings. If anything, it shows people are wanting something more on the go than sitting in the living room to play their game. The consoles also took a hit on their sales because of chip shortages.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        I’m not saying people don’t care about graphics perse, but consoles like Nintendo Wii/Switch and their handhelds have always been a major succes even though they couldn’t produce ‘nice’ graphics. And with VR it’s all about the immersion, yeah graphics whores will say due to the lesser graphics thet won’t feel immersed, but the mainstream people just start playing and don’t really care about the lesser graphics (ofcourse they would love to have superduper AAA graphics, but they are already content with the current batch of top games).
        Don’t mistake the opinion of an enthousiast (like a lot of people here) as being mainstream. Quest is a major success (in the VR sector), and if people thought it really having awful graphics it wouldn’t gave been. Most people I know that own a Quest don’t have a powerful PC, not even a 1060 level GPU, and love their Quest with the native games.
      - I am a Bot
        
        exactly what you’ve been doing the whole time LOL
      - GunnyNinja
        
        I own 4 headsets. I’ve owned many more. I didn’t buy any of them to be standalone besides the Go. If it could connect to a PC and was 6dof, I’d do it. Any others that I buy MUST be able to tether to PC. I think you should stop generalizing.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        But by now you’re not the general consumer anymore so stop thinking you are. I also owned a few headsets and the cable is always the biggest annoyance, then the awful fresnel lenses. If you’ve ever used a wireless headset you don’t want to go back anymore. Wireless is the future, but the Pico Neo3 is the best hybrid by having an actual DP plug, so it can be used both, hopefully new headsets (including meta) will have a DP port too, or DP over usb-c.
      - Adam Collins
        
        my point is it isnt bloat.
        1. its a highly requested feature by the vr community. i know this because i saw it all the time despite not caring about about the social advantages(until very recently), you vastly underestimate how much the primarily use vr as social device crowd is in the vr community…..and based on how many have had full body tracking when they added hundreds to over a thousand dollars to your rigs cost, how many will pay big bucks to enhance that experience.
        2. its not just for chatting,youre missing the technical advantages too, there is a thing called foveated rendering where programs reduce load on the computer by only rendering the part of the screen that the eye is currently looking at in full resolution. Using eye tracking very much improves this. frames times have been shown to be reduced 3.6x using this technique(testing was done on psvr). reducing the time it takes for a computer(onboard or as a PC) to render a frame to under a 1/3 of what it was is pretty huge.
        3. the index 2 will certainly also have eye tracking(valve was already adding this to its extremely high end headsets and pretty much every headset maker is looking at adding it, because it such a highly requested feature)
        4. Gameplay interactions can absolutely use this and will.
        5.the cost of tech goes down…..new features always release on the higher end more expensive things first….over time, eye tracking will progress and get cheaper and even the 4-500 headsets will have it standard….eye trackers alone cost over a grand not long ago.
        6. what made the quest great, it took a ton of quality features of headsets that did cost 7-800 bucks and put them in a $300 headset. this is taking features usually found in $1500 headsets and probably gonna be
        selling them at 900-1000 bucks..does this mean itll be the best bang for buck headset? who knows, its a market thats coming into itself, so new challengers are always a release away….but i can almost guarantee the next headset that takes the crown from the quest 2 will have eye tracking.
        7.dont worry, if meta doesnt, someone is gonna release a barebones only focused on gaming headset(probably decently soon as the market is maturing quickly), unfortunately, by then, eye tracking will almost certainly be standard on headsets and will be included, as it increases performance and will be used in games.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        1. Sorry, man, but VR community is pretty much the same as SteamVR community. Zuckerberg WANTS make a sort of Facebook VR under the new name but that doesn’t mean he will succeed. And he most certainly hasn’t succeeded yet.
        
        2-7. Where did you see me speaking against eye tracking? Yes, foveated rendering is a great improvement, especially since it could be handled by the engine (or maybe even by the lower layers, eventually, by hardware).
        
        4. But don’t expect any games to provide any interface-wise support anytime soon.
        
        6. Exactly. And Cambria just threw out of the window that advantage. It seems to be more expensive than any other next gen headsets. All in hopes that people would pay big bucks for the privilege to grin to each other in some stupid VR chatroom.
        
        7. I don’t. I even think I know the name of that someone. ;)
  - Sofian
    
    Cloud gaming will bring PC games to standalone HMD without the need for a PC.
    - Andy Prokhorov
      
      Cloud gaming is the pinnacle of PC gaming. If anything, it proves the uselessness of an autonomous “smart” headset: you just connect to a powerful PC at the cloud gaming farm from anywhere in the world.
      - Sofian
        
        Yes this is the point, playing PC games with smaller headset, cheaper, running cooler and for a longer time.
        It could be useless for you but I am sure this is where we are heading to.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Do you even understand what are you talking about? That hypothetical smaller, cheaper, running cooler and longer headset is the opposite to where Meta is heading. It isn’t useless for me, what is useless is the ability to run software locally on the headset, what makes it bigger, heavier, more expensive, and running hotter for a shorter time.
        
        We don’t need an underpowered PC capable of running inferior versions of games inside our headsets. What we need is a lean dumb peripheral for running VR apps on an external PC that might be located in the same room or in Australia, doesn’t matter.
      - Sofian
        
        Opposite? You ve heard of Meta Avalanche?
        You tried to make the point that we will never get PC level graphics with a standalone headset, future will prove you wrong.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        So you indeed don’t understand what you are talking about. When connecting to a cloud gaming service you do not use your standalone headset AS A STANDALONE HEADSET. You don’t run anything on it except a communication stuck, you don’t need a speedy (well, for a headset) processor for that and you most certainly don’t need 256 GB of storage. You’re using it as a dumb terminal that wirelessly connects to the internet, an over the internet to a PC that actually runs your game.
        
        Cloud VR gaming (or whatever) IS PCVR, the only difference is instead of buying your own PC you’re renting it from a cloud company — and as a result paying MORE (as with any rent) while suffering from extra lag and lower bandwidth of internet link compared to direct link. It might be our future — because renting is much more profitable for corporations than selling — but it isn’t the best future.
        
        And in any case, it has nothing to do with standalone vs PCVR. If renting model, i.e. CloudPCVR, indeed wins, nobody would need a standalone headset, all people would need is a cheap dumb headset connected to the provider’s server farm. Some companies might even give them for free, locked to their service.
      - Sofian
        
        You don’t seem to know what a PC is.
        When talking about cloud anything we are talking about servers.
        Is renting movies on Netflix also more expensive than buying every movie you watch?
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        And what is server, pray explain, oh the wise one?
        
        As of Netflix, if to watch only the movies worth watching, it would probably be cheaper to just buy them. O rent them — rather then subscribe to a service full of junk.
        
        But that’s irrelevant. You see, with Netflix you rent only a license, actual serving and transmission costs are negligible per customer per show. While for games — and especially VR games — on top of that you’re renting a powerful PC (oh, sorry, server). And that’s a totally different ball game. We’re not talking about tens of thousands streams per server anymore, we’re talking about a $1000 dedicated machine for each customer. Or, at the very best, two or three customers per specialized PC with multiple independent graphics cards, what brings costs a bit lower buy not by much.
      - ViRGiN
        
        Nobody, absolutetly nobody needs any PCVR parity going further into the future. Existing PCVR is nothing that will be considered retro 10 years from now. Todays PCVR is the Virtual Boy of Back Then.
      - Cl
        
        I gaurantee all the headsets will be usable on PC. I have a quest2, but mainly use it on PC. Why can’t we have both? I don’t see why you are against PCVR so much. Oh right, anything valve is involved in is bad.
      - ViRGiN
        
        it’s obsolete. i’m not “against” it. PCVR has just proven itself over the years to be nothing more than a mobile platform running off real-time-raytracing-capable-of-running-battlefield machine.
        
        if you want to play pcvr, no amount of “hateful” comments is going to change that. but DAYS, WEEKS, MONTHS, YEARS passed and PCVR did no go up a notch a bit. VRLFG does not lie, but you absolutetly may.
        
        Valve is bad, cause they are worshipped for literally nothing but cheap games. It’s a corporation that just sells other people software. If you are a flat gamer, you don’t really have much to complain. Now, if you enjoy VR, like MOST OF US DO HERE, you have to be blind to see that they are absolutetly uncommited to anything VR.
      - Cl
        
        What do you consider going up a notch? PC gets better hardware every year which makes VR run better. I use quest 2 on PC so everytime they make that better I benefit. They still make PCVR games. Could they make more games that take advantage of PC power? Sure.
        
        Valve is working on a new headset that I have faith will he good. Index was good when it came out even though it’s still expensive and took a while to get wireless. I think valve is popular because they were one of the first popular game distribution platforms and people like half life. Google, Apple and oculus have their stores take just as much of a cut as valve. I guess you just don’t think they are doing enough, but is that really a reason for the hate?
      - ViRGiN
        
        Index didn’t take “a while” to get wireless. It’s still not possible, no amount the prototypes. There are no products you can buy. There are only upcoming kickstarters. So tons of promises, lots of delays, big problems all over the place.
        
        Nobody cares about PCVR games. Nobody. Nobody cares about “new games still coming out”, because nobody wants to play them. Everything ever played, the whole TOP10 is filled with years old titles. If you re move alyx from the list, you could roughly say ‘VR launch titles’.
        
        Valve is working on what? Nothing. Steam Deck is nothing new, just a handheld PC, sold at low price compared to what existed over the years before. Designed completly to milk even more cash, and kill any competition by offering more for less. Bad? Not really, just a simple fact. But it was the Quest 2 blamed all over the internet for “selling under the cost”, and making “competition impossible”. Quest 2 rose in price, and there are no changes really. Unlike steam deck, quest is a whole new platform, with whole new technology etc etc.
        
        Meta, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, whatever – they all employ dozens of thousands of people. Valve? Around 360. A multi billion dollar company, living exclusively by rougly speaking hosting other people files (like Mega from kitDOTcom) is essentialy HOARDING worlds wealth. And nobody bats an eye. Think about it.
      - ViRGiN
        
        > Google, Apple and oculus have their stores take just as much of a cut as valve.
        
        Google and Apple indeed does milk it for quite a long time. Meta/Oculus is essentially a startup in comparison, and whatever the profits, they at least double the investments. There is no hoarding, just a long term goal.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        No you are wrong, what YOU want is a dumb headset running on an external PC, but what mainstream wants is a dedicated headset without the need for a superduper PC, that’s why the Quest 2 is such a success. The Nintendo switch also shows that mainstream doesn’t really care about the best graphics.
        Personally I also want a standalone headset, but with the ability to also be used as a wireless headset for PCVR (or via direct DP cable like the Pico neo3).
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Sorry, but I see no relevance here. What are you trying to say, that there is a large segment of potential buyers that can’t afford an expensive PCVR setup or just are not willing to spend this kind of money on entertainment? Nobody disputes that.
        
        But that argument only holds water for (relatively) cheap Quest 2, not for super-expensive Cambria. It targets (whether Zuckerberg understands it or not) a totally different market segment. Index 2 will likely be cheaper than Cambria and I would be very surprised if Valve didn’t introduce in the nearest future a reasonably priced cloud game service that would allow playing on any PC or maybe even on any VT with some HRMI “SteamStick.” Their next headset might well be capable to connect directly to the router in order to access their cloud service, skipping the PC requirement altogether.
      - Arno van Wingerde
        
        Not completely, the local intelligence may still good for tracking and such… or simply very light stuff.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Sure, nowadays even keyboard and mice (even some cables!) have chips in them. So, yes, from that standpoint a good headset must be “smart.” Boundaries, diagnostics (e.g. FPS), raw tracking processing, etc. is better be done onboard. But that’s it. There is no point wearing underpowered PC on your head.
  - shadow9d9
    
    Unless it is wireless, I don’t care. Standalone is the future.
    - Andy Prokhorov
      
      Wireless != standalone. Wireless means wirelessly connecting to a powerful PC. Standalone means relying on a grossly underpowered onboard processor.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        And yet even THAT, relying on an underpowered onboard processor will be the future. Mainstream doesn’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a PC to be able to drive a highend headset, only enthousiasts will, the Quest 2 is actually a good example of a lot of people not ‘needing’ the superduper highend PC experience. Mobile GPU’s will get better, and PC GPU’s will also get cheaper (for the wireless PCVR experience).
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Well, mainstream doesn’t want to spend $1000+ on headset either.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        That’s EXACTLY what I’m saying. Therefore the Quest Pro isn’t targeted at mainstream, but at prosumer, and that’s still a decent market for these new features to test before putting it in mainstream headsets as the costs for the extra needed internal camera’s will drop by then. Till now eyetracking has always been around $200 more expensive as the headsets without, that’s also why I think the PSVR2 headset won’t be as ‘cheap’ as the original PSVR.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Not sure about decent market. I mean, if it’s comparable in price and quality to the next generation of Valve and HTC headsets, why not? But if extra processing power, memory and storage would drive price up and/or force a lower PC performance, I don’t think there will be any market for it.
      - Mradr
        
        Wont happen – the extra features cost too much for a while longer. Eye tracking alone can cost between 100 to 200 just to have it. Unless they are willing to make different line ups, the cost can’t really come down by much going further without massively long delays. Talking years on years here.
      - Andrew Jakobs
        
        VR is ‘held back’ by costs and nothing else, GPU’s to drive the 4k/120fps per eye displays are still very VERY costly (even for running the current resolution of 2k/120fps per eye), as you said eyetracking is also pretty expensive. So until the GPU’s are getting much cheaper to drive these ‘nextgen’ headsets, there is no real financial logic to create headsets as they are still way to expensive to produce for mainstream.
      - Mradr
        
        Eh, not what I hear. Sure many people don’t have the money for a high-end PC, but I never heard anyone saying the graphics are on par with their PC. They tend to want more and current levels are not going to get much better unless they expand what they have now and that means less battery life, heat, or cost. There isn’t a good middle ground as they are already using a pretty high-end chip in the first place (ok, well within a few generations of ARM anyways).
      - namekuseijin
        
        “don’t mess with my powerful pc or else I call mommy!”
      - Mradr
        
        Not sure why people downvoted you – you are correct.
  - Cl
    
    Except this isn’t meant to replace quest 2 which has all the bells and whistles removed? All those GB? It’s 12GB. That’s not even a lot. If you think face and eye tracking isn’t useful for VR, which is supposed to be immersive, then idk what to say to you. You need to be forward thinking when it comes to this stuff.
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  How do you know other companies aren’t doing this? Pico also seems to be doing this with their next pro headset, and I’ll bet HTC will also have something like that with their next Focus headset.
  - sebrk
    
    Of course I don’t know what is not publicly known. All I’m saying is that Meta is the one company that seem to put a lot into RnD and frankly is unmatched in the consumer space.
- GunnyNinja
  
  If they were doing it right, it would be adjustable for everyone. 58mm max is not doing it right.
- Clownworld14
  
  yah, I’m hoping the Index comes out with a new upgrade, Index 2 from Valve that caters exclusively to powerful gaming rigs. I get slight lag and headache from playing gta5 in vr as awesome as it is.
Foreign Devil

Personally I have no interest in social VR. .and having my face tracked for it. . I would consider buying it if the other specs warrant the price jump though. And if the eye tracking was useful beyond social VR. . . (performance gain).
- Anonymous
  
  Even without doing anything social, there are a gazillion good ideas that could benefit fron eye/face tracking for better VR game design / immersive NPC interaction.
  
  Don’t be so narrow sighted.
  - Andy Prokhorov
    
    Does any game except HL:A use all-finger tracking of Index controllers? Nope. Because developers generally make games for the lowest common denominator. Maybe some day in the future facial expressions would indeed be incorporated in the gameplay. But by that time these new headsets would be already in landfill.
    - ViRGiN
      
      “lowest common denominator” does not apply to valve products. Valve has been sending “knuckles” devkits for about 3 (three!) years, and the best use case was ability to show middle finger in pavlov. it’s a complete gimmick, and has NOTHING to do with hand/finger tracking. it’s controller tracking with extra obsoletness to it, nothing more than that.
      
      always cracks me up when people say index controllers are ‘immersive’. one way to spot pcvr absolute orthodox fanboys.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Sorry to disappoint you but face tracking is even bigger gimmick. It might allow you to stick out your tongue instead of middle finger but nothing more. As a matter of fact, individual finger tracking is much more useful than face tracking. Theoretically it would allow a player to use hand signs to give orders to teammates. But even so, as we see, no company is willing to invest in such interfaces until such feature becomes universal, supported by all major controllers.
        
        Face tracking, on the other hand, has absolutely no utility outside of chatting. And even there it’s a rather crude gimmick since really it tracks only the mouth and is very unlikely to translate all the variety of expression into the avatar.
      - ViRGiN
        
        It’s not a “bigger” or a “gimmick”, when it gets integrated into device that REALISTICALLY will actually get into hands of many many people. “Cambria” will be out of reach for most, but still many will save up for one once they see capabilities, and it’s already confirmed the technology will move onto further products, so it’s not entirely unreasonable we will see it transferred into the Quest 3 or something.
        
        Nobody cares if HTC comes out with mouth tracker, nobody cares when Pimax releases eye tracker, nobody cares when valve drops “finger tracking”. Everybody do take notices whenever Meta launches new features. Hand tracking? Dozens of apps using it. AR/Mixed Reality? Quest 2 supports that.
        
        Saying anything about any potential new features without backing of the company who ACTUALLY leads the VR on all fronts is simply extremely naive. Finger tracking on Index controllers are as relevant as perfect toe tracking addon would be.
      - Andy Prokhorov
        
        Wow, man. Are you working in Meta’s marketing department?
      - ViRGiN
        
        how much valve is paying you? why did gabe sent you here?
eadVrim

3D room scanning for new era of chat and communication by mixing VR and passthrough augmented reality.
Billy Jackson

Some of us have ambition past playing the next single player RPG or shooter. some of us actually do like MMO or multiplayer games where we can talk to our friends/family. this will add more immersion beyond just a floating head with no expression.

Prime example would be poker stars VR or any of the chat/theater basedgames/apps. Last but not least would be one of the up coming table top simulators that allow you to play Pen & Paper D&D or other roleplaying games.. eye and face tracking is fantastic.. especially if you can start to look like your character.
- Andrew Jakobs
  
  How is this interesting for poker? Having to rely on expressions through a headset is not smart as people will use headsets without the function or find ways to fool the facetracking. People will cheat if possible.
  
  But I agree, eye/face tracking will improve social VR a lot.
  - Andy Prokhorov
    
    Especially in the interactive AI-powered ads, which all this “metaverse” is really all about.
TonyVT SkarredGhost

Well, we were already expecting that, honestly
CaryMGVR

Joe Rogan: a dumb guy’s smart guy.
“Wow, QuestPRO is coming in October, what a surprise!”
Said no one ever.
That QuestPRO’s release at Connect, which is in October,
should come as no surprise at all.
- I am a Bot
  
  That’s an awesome description of Rogan, thank you :)
- Jeremiah Tothenations
  
  It’s interesting that Zuck also admitted in the same interview to helping the FBI steal an election!
Jonathan Winters III

Unless I’m missing something, this headline is misleading – this October release is not a Quest headset, but rather, a Cambria headset.
- VR5
  
  Cambria is a code name, Quest originally was called Santa Cruz. As the article mentions, “Quest Pro” might be a possible name. It would make sense to call it a Quest since it can play Quest apps and it has brand recognition.
  
  The higher price and Quest 2 still being available should be enough to tell people they don’t absolutely need the Pro if they just want to play games.
  - Jonathan Winters III
    
    Gotta say, Meta sure is scrambled when naming things.
    - VR5
      
      Are they tough? Quick look at Amazon showed me the 2021 iPad for €379 and iPad Pro for €879. Does this confuse people and make them think they can’t buy the cheaper regular iPad because there also is a Pro?
- Bob
  
  Yes that’s correct. The new headset slated to launch this October is Project Cambria (a.k.a Quest Pro). The direct Quest sequel (Quest 3) is slated to launch next year around the same timeframe.
Derek Kent

Wider FOV, proper black levels, higher resolution. that’s it. that’s all I want. Instead this new headset will be 1000$, have facial tracking, eye tracking and other social BS, and have the same poor FOV and terrible black levels. yuck. no thanks.
- Bob
  
  ” and terrible black levels”
  
  Not necessarily; according to the leaked schematics the device has a dual layer mini LED panels similar to the Hisense Dual Cell technology which should allow for deep blacks and very high native contrast ratio.
  
  In terms of FOV, we should expect slightly higher vertical FOV due to the new pancake lenses arrangement.
  - ViRGiN
    
    no matter how hyped, i am yet to see any technology in any consumer products outbeating even 10 year old OLED screens, like used in Note 3 – which i will kindly remind you – provided better Cardboard VR experience than the best VR at the time, the DK1.
    - Bob
      
      Agreed. OLED is superior to anything LCD but in this case mini LED LCD is better than the standard washed-out garbage that most current HMDs are sporting.
      - ViRGiN
        
        i bet it will be an improvement, but i’ll gladly accept all drawbacks of OLED (which essentially vanished after DK2) over anything else.
    - Arno van Wingerde
      
      Well, as far as picture quality goes you may have a point, I have not tried the note 3 in Cardbox. But optics, comfort, hand tracking etc. is a very different matter! I bet you do not play with Cardboard VR all that much any more!
      Me, I played with an Apple iPhone and the overal experience was amazing at the time, but lousy by today’s standard – also because Apple did not support much in the way of controllers.
- Arno van Wingerde
  
  All I wanted is a bigger truck and they bring out a Lamborghini? I simply think the Quest pro is not aimed at gamers.
Rudl Za Vedno

No way am I paying Zack 1,500 bucks to data mine my ass.
https://media1.giphy.com/media/26n6RHgqCf257A9tC/giphy-downsized-medium.gif
- ViRGiN
  
  you have no life, nobody cares about you browsing steam sales 24/7.
ViRGiN

the only downside of this headset is that there is no successor to XR2. so it’s not exactly near-future proof, as hardware wise it will be quest 2 equivalent, and no amount of cooling will really help the power here. but that’s not really meta fault, qualcomm simply hasn’t designed anything new yet
I am a Bot

The social aspect is 100% the future of VR, and not steam VR gaming ! Most VR users of older age groups use VR solely for games (Escapism) and that drives all their opinions on hardware and features of the current, and next gen hardware, as you can see in this thread, without naming names !

Obviously, Zuck wants to build a real-life Oasis – for this to be truly immersive, it will need all those features (the ones some here say are silly and un-necessary) to make it fly and to sell his headsets. He wants to pull gamers out of just gaming (which is still very susceptible to Piracy) and into his Metaverse, which is about much more than gaming. Just the potential of 16MP colour passthrough is going to be A-MAZING, let alone all the other bells and whistles. To echo an earlier post – it’s a pity that Meta is the only company right now that understands VR. Cause folks who think that VR’s future is just about games are stuck living a Dactyl Nightmare.
Walter Sharrow

Great Article:
Breaking News! We don’t know anything new. STAY TUNED!
Trenix

I’m waiting for any other headset. I don’t trust facebook. This is the same social media that suspended me for my own private posts among my own family.
Arno van Wingerde

From the detail we have, such as expected price and eye/face tracking capabilities, Quest pro seems not focused on gaming, but on working… videoconferencing and stuff.
Sure, Meta does not mind if a gamer buys one, but that certainly does not seem to be the main focus group. That matches with the expected prices of around 800-1000 $ in order to drive the message home.
Derek Kent

Same narrow FOV, LCD panels. 1000 bucks. pass.
- shadow9d9
  
  Comfort and weight are the important factors for me.