Meta announced in April of last year that it was preparing to release Horizon OS, its Quest-exclusive operating system, to third-party headsets for the first time. XR devices running Horizon OS were set to arrive from ASUS, Lenovo, and Xbox, although Meta has  remained tightlipped about the headsets since. Now, a report from trusted serial leaker ‘Luna‘ points to Asus being the first out of the gate.

Luna, who shares information about upcoming virtual reality hardware and software, has leaked a number of Meta projects in the past, including the name of Quest 3S before its official announcement and the inclusion of an Action Button on the headset.

Luna’s datamining also revealed a room-scanning setup video for Quest 3 before its launch in 2023, as well as various Quest software features before their unveiling, like when Meta was testing the ability to show and keep apps pinned to the Universal Menu dock.

Luna, ostensibly drawing from an anonymous inside source, now reports the Asus Republic of Gamers headset “will likely be one of the first [third-party] Horizon OS HMDs to ship.”

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Reportedly codenamed ‘Tarius’, Luna maintains the headset is planned to include eye-tracking as well as face-tracking, putting it conceptually at parity with Quest Pro’s most modern features. Displays are also said to be quantum dot LCD displays with local dimming, or micro-OLED.

Provided this is true, it would suggest Asus isn’t just putting out a Quest 3S clone adorned with RBG lighting, but rather a true departure from Quest’s middle-of-the-road consumer offerings, which now include the $500 Quest 3 (512GB) and $300 Quest 3S (128GB).

While the report should be taken with a grain of salt, it’s clear Meta hopes to make a move soon to counter Google’s release of Android XR, which is making its debut on Samsung’s upcoming XR headset, codenamed Project Moohan, which planned for consumer release sometime this year.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Rudl Za Vedno
  • JanO

    Seems like Meta is trying to use OEMs to test the waters with various high-end designsfeature sets (and they will probably undercut all of them once thet have an answer, not a bad strategy if you think about it…).

  • VrBiTcH

    The Asus-holes have the worst tech-support I've ever encountered. They outsource it to the people in India that start by trying to make you spell out your name and address one letter at a time and still cannot guess right! Their web-site and voice-mail systems are equally unhelpful and full of dead-ends. Never buying a flaky product from them again!

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    TL;DR: A feasible Asus Horizon HMD will add more RAM, flash, 2.5K displays, eye tracking and slightly improved performance for USD (minimum) 800-1000. Less features/money makes no sense due to how Meta markets Quest 3.

    Asus going for a Quest 3S or even Quest 3 class headset was never an option with Meta selling hardware at cost and requiring all Horizon OS HMDs to use their own Horizon app store, funneling all software revenue to Meta.

    So Asus' only way to make money/recoup cost will be charging a certain margin on top of the production cost. 50% is often considered a minimum for low to medium volume electronics products to at least break even, only mass market products can be successful with low(er) margins due to spreading development costs over much more users.

    But nobody would buy an Asus Quest 3 for USD 750 when Meta is selling the same hardware for USD 500. So Asus has to add extra features to justify taking more money. A cheap way is adding more RAM and flash storage. 16GB LPDDR5 or 128GB MLC flash should cost around USD 10 each. Another cheap improvement is higher resolution passthrough cameras, and the ones in Quest 3 clearly limit the MR experience. That's pretty much what Pico did with the Pico 4 Ultra, updating the SoC to XR2 Gen 2 plus extra RAM and better cameras for MR/productivity apps.

    Meta had a reason though for not adding more RAM or better cameras, boiling down to cost and balanced design. Better passthrough also eats more compute power, adding heat and reducing battery life. Consequently Asus may have to use less aggressive CPU underclocking, add more active cooling and a larger, heavier battery they could use as a counter balance at the back of a halo strap. Which would also allow to drive a higher resolution, ideally paired with (again cheap) eye tracking hardware using Meta's (compute expensive) ETFR. And maybe Asus will go for the new XR2+ that would give them 20% more GPU and 15% more CPU compared to the Quest 3's XR2 Gen 2, plus the performance gained from less underclocking/better cooling.

    But all this puts the Asus HMD firmly in the higher enthusiasts price tier. If an Asus 1:1 Quest 3 clone would have to sell at USD 750 to be profitable, adding RAM, flash, better cameras, eye tracking and a larger battery with a more complex headstrap will quickly push the price towards USD 1000, even if each component will be rather cheap. And that's before upgrading to an XR2+.

    Going for less features would leave Asus with an unfavorable value compared to the Quest 3 sold at cost, so their only real option is to add so many features that a significantly higher price seems justified. And if they somehow manage to include 2.5K microOLEDs displays, which are currently only available in the USD 1000 Bigscreen Beyond, a lot of enthusiast should indeed be fine with a USD 1000+ Asus Horizon standalone HMD.

  • Sean

    Micro OLED and I’m in at anything under $1500. LCD? Not a chance for me. Already have a Quest 3 and Quest Pro. Mini LED is not a substitute for OLED.

    • xyzs

      Exactly. I had 2LCD HMDs, sold them both because the difference between pure pitch dark w/ vibrant colors vs grey / less vibrant colors is a huge difference in experience.

      For those who never had OLED VR experience, it's a bit like listening to music in a totally silent environment with good speakers, vs listening with a noticeable background noise on medium quality speakers.

  • Dragon Marble

    I'll be happy if they just put better chips, higher resolution panels and cameras into the Quest Pro.

  • 石雨濛

    Quest Pro's price and its sales should indicate that there really is NOT a market for garbage mobile VR. The ONLY reason Meta sells their garbage 3S and 3 is due to the garbage level prices simply not achievable by any other vendor willing to lose BILLIONS per month on a product.

    Developing a MetaOS HMD is corperate suicide as there is simply NO WAY for companies to lose billions in order to price compete with meta garbage hardware.

    I would say this product is nothing more than vaperware dreamed up by journos.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    Well, they already have experience with aVR headset based on the Windows MR platform, and as I understand, it was a pretty comfortable headset. But we'll see, looking forward to more players on the market, and using Meta's platform means a large library to choose from.