Apple describes the Vision Pro as a “spatial computing” device, but right now it's arguably as much a pair of cinema goggles that can play 3D movies. That billing has been undermined by the absence of a few apps from streaming's big players – and Netflix has just explained why it's steering clear of the headset, for now.
In an interview with Stratechery (via The Verge), Netflix's co-CEO Greg Peters revealed why Netflix hasn't made a native app (or even made its iPad app available) for the Vision Pro. In a completely fair yet somehow slightly withering observation, he states that the Vision Pro “is so subscale that it's not particularly relevant to most of our members”.
Peters adds that Netflix has to make sure “that we’re not investing in places that are not really yielding a return”, but that “we’re always in discussions with Apple to try and figure that out”. In other words, Netflix isn't ruling out making an app for the Vision Pro in the future, but only when Apple's headset becomes a lot more mainstream.
Yet Netflix's conservative approach to the Vision Pro also reflects some historically frosty relations with Apple. Netflix hasn't let you sign up to its app through Apple TV for many years to avoid Apple taking a cut of the revenue. And Netflix also still hasn't fully integrated with the TV app on Apple's streaming box, which lets you see content from all of your streaming services in a single carousel.
Whether it'll be a similar story for Netflix on the Apple Vision Pro remains to be seen, but for now, the mixed-reality headset will be missing the world's biggest TV streaming app, alongside Spotify and YouTube.
A sensible move or a snub?
(Image credit: Apple)
Right now, the Vision Pro is arguably a very expensive developer kit that's also available to buy in limited quantities – so Netflix's stance is completely understandable.
Greg Peters does add that Netflix and Apple are in regular contact, stating that “we’re always in discussions with Apple” and that “we’ll see where things go with Vision Pro”.
That's far from a closed door – and yet Netflix hasn't even allowed its iPad app to run on Apple's headset. You can watch Netflix on a web browser on the Vision Pro, but that's hardly a premium experience.
Daring Fireball's Jon Gruber even recently suggested that a Netflix iPad app for Vision Pro did exist, but that the streaming giant had a change of heart – and that the decision was made out of “pure corporate spite”, rather than anything technical.
Whatever the reality behind Netflix not even offering its iPad app on the Vision Pro, Apple certainly has its work cut out to convince some of the world's biggest apps to join its $ 3,499 “spatial computing” party. It's rubbing many developers the wrong way with its potential approach to sideloading on the iPhone, and we'll likely need to wait until at least the Vision Pro 2 before it gets close to being mainstream.
Not many people have been in the same room as an Apple Vision Pro mixed reality headset, let alone touched and worn the thing. But if you're itching to get close before the February 2 launch day, Apple has the next best thing on its Apple Store App.
People often forget that Apple does some of the best AR in the business, including some wicked occlusion capabilities that let virtual objects block the view of real ones that sit or move behind them – and Apple's AR rendering of its Apple Vision Pro is right up there with its best work.
If you're not already familiar with the mixed reality set that everyone is talking about, Apple's Vision Pro is the tech giant's first attempt at an AR/VR-capable headset. Apple calls the entire experience Spatial Computing. I've worn it four times now, and I've experienced movies, interactive AR experiences, incredible panoramic photography, and almost wept through realistic spatial video; and I've done most of it with little more than my gaze and subtle gestures.
It's a wildly expensive product, starting at $ 3,499, but that hasn't dampened interest (it reportedly sold out on pre-order and is a hot item on eBay), so it makes sense for Apple to give us this AR taste.
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To find it, you'll need to open the Apple Store App on your best iPhone or best iPad. In it, look for the Vision Pro, select it, and then scroll until you see 'View in your space'. Tap this, and then point your phone's camera at a flat surface like your desk or kitchen table. Keep the phone still for a moment, and after Apple finishes analyzing the 3D contours of the space, a translucent Vision Pro headset will appear. Tap it to drop it onto the table. After that, you can use one finger to move the AR Vision Pro around, and two fingers to rotate it. You can also resize it with two fingers, but then it won't be represented at full scale (it's easy to snap it back to 100%).
You can also move your phone around the rendering to see the headset from all sides, and even get close and peer into the dual, 4K microLED displays, which appear to be showing some sort of landscape. It's an opportunity to get an up-close look at the features, materials like the recycled yarn woven band, the aluminum spatial photography button, and the digital crown.
There's even a MagSafe-style power adapter attached to one side with a woven USB-C cable running off of the Vision Pro, but instead of running to a nearby battery, the cable disappears at the edge of the woven band. There's also no option to depict the Vision Pro with the Dual Loop Band that will also ship with the headset; I think that's a shame, since I bet that's how many people will end up wearing the Vision Pro.
Ultimately, this is a chance to see what the Vision Pro will look like in your real world; however, one thing this AR experience can't do is replicate the feeling of all that money leaving your wallet.
Pre-orders for Apple’s Vision Pro have officially opened, and with it, the company has released information on how much it’ll cost to repair the headset.
Be prepared to shell a ton out of pocket because prices are astronomical if you don’t have an AppleCare Plus insurance plan. According to the official support page, repairs fall under two categories: “Cracked Cover Glass” and “Other Damage”. The former will have an estimated cost of $ 799 while the latter will run you a whopping $ 2,399. As AppleInsider points out, that’s about “70 percent of the price of a new [unit].” Keep in mind that the price tags listed here don’t include shipping or taxes so expect them to be even higher. Additionally, Apple will not fix the cover glass even if the damage was done accidentally. It appears the only damage they'll repair for uninsured owners is manufacturing defects.
Batteries can be serviced too but Apple doesn’t say how much it’ll cost. The only thing they say is that a technician will fix it “for a fee”. Also, it won’t replace a battery worn down from normal use as that type of degradation is not covered by the warranty.
Hope you have insurance
If you have AppleCare Plus for the Vision Pro, costs go down considerably, hardware coverage expands, and you’ll be given access to company experts.
Instead of paying $ 800 for glass repair, insured users will only have to pay $ 300. This covers accidental damage, as well. The same goes for other types of damages. Rather than paying a $ 2,400 bill, the price will drop down to $ 300. Battery service is considerably better under AppleCare Plus. Replacing the power supply will be free, but the battery must hold “less than 80 percent of its original capacity” otherwise the company will refuse.
As for the expanded hardware coverage, authorized technicians will repair accidental damage done to the headset an unlimited number of times, however, it will cost you $ 300 each time. What’s more, technicians will fix damaged accessories like the charging cable for an extra $ 30.
When it comes to the aforementioned experts, they will help you address any issues with the device's software. They’ll answer questions you may have on navigating visionOS, how to connect to Wi-Fi, and help you resolve issues relating to first-party apps.
Expensive endeavor
AppleCare Plus for the Vision Pro is available as two separate plans: monthly and fixed term. The monthly plan costs you $ 24.99 while the fixed option will run you $ 499 for two whole years. If you plan on getting insurance, you can buy it with the headset at checkout or within 60 days after purchasing it online. So, there is a weird time limit to getting AppleCare Plus, but considering you may be looking at a $ 2,400 bill without insurance, you may be better off opting for it.
The Vision Pro is proving itself to be an expensive endeavor; not just because of repairs, but also due to the multitude of accessories. Extra batteries cost $ 200, travel cases are another $ 200, Zeiss Optical lens inserts start at $ 99, and the list goes on. A holder for the battery made entirely out of plastic is $ 50. Interested customers will need to make sure their wallets can handle such an investment or buckle under it.
Although excitement is building for the release of the Apple Vision Pro mixed-reality headset (pre-orders are now live), potential users will have to do without not just YouTube or Spotify, but Netflix as well. While Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus (obviously) are guaranteed to be available right out of the box, we do have to question if you’ll be able to take advantage of the headset's cinematic qualities without these three media giants.
While some streaming competitors are rushing to embrace the Apple Vision Pro (including Peacock, ESPN, and Paramount Plus), Netflix and YouTube seem to be playing the waiting game, and when the headset launches Apple Vision Pro users will have to access their respective services through the Safari browser (which has it's own Vision Pro version) rather than via dedicated apps. According to a report from Bloomberg, Netflix is the latest to confirm that it won’t be offering a visionOS app.
YouTube in particular is quite the omission considering that it is probably the best place to find immersive content, especially videos tailored to the VR experience capabilities of the Vision Pro. The videos available on the platform may not be as refined and curated as the content you can find on Netflix or Disney Plus, but it’s a media platform used by many people almost daily and leaves the headset feeling somewhat empty without it – more so now that Netflix is joining in abstaining from visionOS.
All work and no play?
It’s a troubling start for Apple’s big foray into mixed reality. After all, if you’re sitting down to use a headset that cost you $ 3,499 but you have to pull up Safari and start typing away on your connected MacBook just to watch a video or an episode of your favourite Netflix show, is it really worth the money? Using Safari is a clunky workaround at best.
There are almost certainly multiple factors at play behind the scenes here. Netflix and Apple do have a rather strained relationship at the best of times. Netflix has historically had issues with Apple’s App Store revenue sharing, with this contention definitely not helped by the arrival of Apple TV. Another likely reason we aren’t seeing Netflix jump at the opportunity to produce a visionOS app is simply that it has little faith in Apple’s headset.
In fact, you could argue that the streaming service has so little faith in the Vision Pro that it’s not even willing to modify a version of the Netflix iPadOS app to work on the new platform (not unlike how Instagram on iPadOS is just a scaled-up version of the iOS app). Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify are likely waiting to see how the headset is received before they any dedicate time and money to developing apps for it. As someone who’s been skeptical of the headset since it was announced, I can’t help but feel more than a little vindicated by this – it’s not just me observing from the sidelines with very little confidence in Apple’s big plans.
I mean, the Nintendo Switch came out in 2017 and that has a dedicated YouTube app (the Nintendo 3DS had one as well!) so if a nearly seven-year-old console can have a dedicated app for the world’s biggest video-streaming platform but this futuristic headset can’t, that really doesn’t look good for Apple.
Ultimately, we can only speculate as to why exactly these big media companies are so hesitant, but one reason may be the way the headset has been marketed. Apple has from the jump advertised the Vision Pro as this incredibly immersive media experience device that will put you right in the middle of the action, but the fact that it’s called a Vision Pro – and the sky-high price tag – does give off the impression it's more for enterprise users. Could this case of confused identity be the reason behind this very visible display of hesitancy?
As of yet, there’s no sign of when, if ever, we could expect a dedicated visionOS app to come from Netflix, YouTube, or Spotify. It’s likely we’ll have to wait and see how well the Vision Pro sells when it launches to have an idea of whether or not we actually will get these apps – if it does prove successful, they won’t have a choice but to commit.
If this hasn’t completely dampened your excitement for the Apple Vision Pro, there’s still quite a lot to look forward to regardless. While it’s mostly still on the more business-focused side of things, we now have a clear list of apps confirmed for the Vision Pro – including Slack, Display Plus, Zoom, Microsoft 365, Safari, and many more to come. And after all, if it truly is meant to be an enterprise device, would it even need a Netflix app?
Every January, the Las Vegas convention centers are full to the brim with exciting new tech for CES, and that’s no different for CES 2024. And what tech is more exciting than the best VR headsets and AR glasses?
We scoured CES 2024 for the best VR and AR tech announcements. We drove in AR-powered cars, tested a bunch of different glasses, and even subjected ourselves to a haptic suit.
It was all worth it, though, to find five fantastic gadgets for this CES 2024 round-up.
This isn’t a VR headset, and, technically, it was revealed before CES, but we’re including it here because Qualcomm gave us a more in-depth look at the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 at the Las Vegas tech convention. This chipset is going to feature in a number of the best VR headsets we see released in the next few years.
(Image credit: Qualcomm)
This powerful successor to the XR2+ Gen 1 found in the Meta Quest Pro will power the next generation of enterprise headsets. This includes the Samsung VR headset being developed in partnership with Google.
In practical terms, the chipset can support displays up to 4.3K resolution per eye running at 90Hz, boasts a 2.5x better GPU performance than the XR2 Gen 2 found in the Meta Quest 3, and has 8x better AI performance. It can also support Wi-Fi 7 and full-color mixed reality passthrough.
Qualcomm is currently the name in the XR chipset game, and we expect the XR2+ Gen 2 will only further cement its position. And it might help rival XR gadgets prove they're just as capable as the Apple Vision Pro.
2. Asus AirVision M1 glasses
Speaking of Apple, this year’s CES prize for the gadget that sounds most like a knockoff Apple product goes to the AirVision M1 glasses from Asus.
(Image credit: Asus)
The name might be reminiscent of the Vision Pro – sprinkling in aspects of the iPad Air and Apple’s M1 chipset found in some iPads and Macbooks – but is almost completely unrelated to Apple’s hardware. The only minor similarity is that these specs are a wearable AR display.
The Asus glasses don’t function on their own; you need to plug them into a compatible phone or computer with a USB-C display port (meaning it can output video and audio through USB-C). These kinds of gadgets are admittedly a lot of fun, but our experience with them is that they’re still pretty pricey for what you get. The resolution is only full-HD, and you often need to buy several not-so-optional add-ons to get the most out of your experience – raising the price above the usual $ 400 / £400 / AU$ 600 price you already pay for smart spectacles.
We haven’t yet tried the Asus AirVision M1 glasses – nor do we know what regions they’ll be available in or when the launch date is – so we’ll reserve judgment on them for now. But if you’re after a pair of specs that lives up to what you expect from “AR glasses” the next item on this list might be a better pick.
3. Xreal Air 2 Ultra
(Image credit: Xreal)
Xreal makes some of our favorite smart glasses – you can find out more about the AR specs it made before in our Xreal Air review and Xreal Air 2 Pro review – and at CES 2024, it debuted something that promises to be even better than what we’ve seen from it in the past.
The Xreal Air 2 Ultra goes beyond simply projecting an AR screen in your real-world space like its predecessors. It’s a proper spatial computer complete with a camera – so the device can track your hands and identify real-world objects that virtual elements can interact with.
However, while the glasses sound a lot like the Apple Vision Pro there’s one downside – you need an external device to power them. Specifically, Xreal lists only the Samsung Galaxy S22, the Samsung Galaxy S23, and a “custom computing unit” that is yet to be released as the gadgets fit for the job. If you aren’t interested in spatial computing you could use them as a wearable full-HD display for any gadget with a USB-C display port.
On the flip side, even if you buy a new Samsung phone, you could get a whole Xreal spatial computing package for around $ 1,000 / £1,100 if you can find a Galaxy S22 on sale. This is less than a third of the price of the $ 3,499 Apple Vision Pro – though it is a lot pricier than the $ 499.99 / £479.99 / AU$ 799.99 Meta Quest 3.
We don’t yet know how well this Air 2 Ultra experience compares to its rivals, but if it can deliver a solid experience Xreal could be on to a winner.
4. AR glasses in a car
My ride. (Image credit: Future)
BMW has been finding ways to bring XR tech to cars for a while. We’ve previously seen its efforts to bring VR offices and entertainment on your travels so car passengers can do more with their journey, but its CES 2024 demo centered on drivers.
Thanks to a pair of Xreal Air 2 glasses, we saw AR directions that guided us through the streets of Las Vegas (for the demo, we were in the passenger seat while someone else drove). We could also see warnings about upcoming potholes, stop signs, and how much charge the electric vehicle had left.
This was all just a very well-made research pilot to help inform the future of driving tech. But the BMW AR experience sold us on the idea, so we hope this kind of tech isn’t too far from being more than just a prototype.
5. Sony’s enterprise headset
(Image credit: Siemens)
Most people think of entertainment when they think of VR, but there’s a huge push to bring more XR gadgets to industry – a trend that the newly announced Sony XR headset continues.
Created in partnership with Siemens, the device is designed to help companies bring more stages of production – in particular, design and prototyping – into the metaverse. Using the headset, they can produce and analyze 3D models of their designs and diagnose any issues before investing in real-world prototypes.
In general, the headset looks pretty standard, but it does feature an odd pair of handsets. One is a more traditionally shaped VR controller, while the other is a ring. The advantages of this setup are that you have a hand free to more easily interact with real-world objects, and you can get hands-on with virtual objects while still having the convenience of buttons on a controller.
There’s not much more to say about the headset for now, but given its standalone design maybe it’ll pave the way for a successor to the PSVR 2 headset that’s no longer tethered to a PlayStation console.
We know for certain that a new Samsung XR/VR headset is in the works, with the device being made in partnership with Google. But much of the XR product’s details (XR, or extended reality, is a catchall for virtual, augmented, and mixed reality) are still shrouded in mystery.
This so-called Apple Vision Pro rival (an XR headset from Apple) will likely have impressive specs – Qualcomm has confirmed its new Snapdragon XR2 Plus Gen 2 chip will be in the headset, and Samsung Display-made screens will probably be featured. It'll also likely have an equally premium price tag. Unfortunately, until Samsung says anything officially, we won’t know exactly how much it will cost, or when it will be released.
But using the few tidbits of official info, as well as our industry knowledge and the rumors out there, we can make some educated guesses that can clue you into the Samsung XR/VR headset’s potential price, release date, and specs – and we’ve got them down below. We’ve also highlighted a few of the features we’d like to see when it’s eventually unveiled to the public.
Samsung XR/VR headset: Price
The Samsung Gear VR, you needed a phone to operate it (Image credit: samsung)
We won’t know how much Samsung and Google’s new VR headset will cost until the device is officially announced, but most rumors point to it boasting premium specs – so expect a premium price.
Some early reports suggested Samsung was looking at something in the $ 1,000 / £1,000 / AU$ 1,500 range (just like the Meta Quest Pro) though it may have changed its plans. After the Apple Vision Pro reveal, it’s believed Samsung delayed the device most likely to make it a better Vision Pro rival in Samsung’s eyes – the Vision Pro is impressive, as you can find out from our hands-on Apple Vision Pro review.
If that’s the case, the VR gadget might not only more closely match the Vision Pro’s specs it might adopt the Vision Pro’s $ 3,499 (about £2,725 / AUS$ 5,230) starting price too, or something close to it.
Samsung XR/VR headset: Release date
Much like its price, we don’t know anything concrete about the incoming Samsung VR headset's release date yet. But a few signs point to a 2024 announcement – if not a 2024 release.
Firstly, there was the teaser Samsung revealed in February 2023 when it said it was partnering with Google to develop an XR headset. It didn’t set a date for when we’d hear more, but Samsung likely wouldn’t make this teasing announcement if the project was still a long way from finishing. Usually, a more full reveal happens a year or so from the teaser – so around February 2024.
The Samsung Unpacked 2023 XR headset teaser (Image credit: Samsung)
Then there’s the Snapdragon XR2 Plus Gen 2 chipset announcement. Qualcomm was keen to highlight Samsung and Google as partners that would be putting the chipset to use.
It would be odd to highlight these partners if its headset was still a year or so from launching. Those partners may have preferred to work with a later next-gen chip, if the XR/VR headset was due in 2025 or later. So this would again point to a 2024 reveal, if not a precise date this year.
A lot of the new Samsung VR headset’s specs are still a mystery. We can assume it’ll use Samsung-made displays (it would be wild if Samsung used screens from one of its competitors) but the type of display tech (for example, QLED, OLED or LCD), resolution, and size are still unknown.
We also don’t know what size battery it’ll have, or its storage space, or its RAM. Nor what design it will adopt – will it look like the Vision Pro with an external display, like the Meta Quest 3 or Quest Pro, or something all-new?
The upshot is that this platform can now support two displays at 4.3K resolution running at up to 90fps. It can also manage over 12 separate camera inputs that VR headsets will rely on for tracking – including controllers, objects in the space, and face movements – and it has more advanced AI capabilities, 2.5x better GPU performance, and Wi-Fi 7 (as well as 6 and 6E).
What we want to see from the new Samsung XR/VR headset
1. Samsung’s XR/VR headset to run on the Quest OS
We’d love to see the best Quest apps on Samsung’s VR headset (Image credit: Meta)
This is very much a pipe dream. With Google and Samsung already collaborating on the project it’s unlikely they’d want to bring in a third party – especially if this headset is intended to compete with Apple and Meta hardware.
But the Quest platform is just so good; by far the best we’ve seen on standalone VR headsets. It’s clean, feature-packed, and home to the best library of VR games and apps out there. The only platform that maybe beats it is Steam, but that’s only for people who want to be tethered to a PC rig.
By partnering with Meta, Samsung’s headset would get all of these benefits, and Meta would have the opportunity to establish its OS as the Windows or Android of the spatial computing space – which might help its Reality Labs division to generate some much-needed revenue by licensing the platform to other headset manufacturers.
2. A (relatively) affordable price tag
The Quest 2 is the king of VR headsets, because it’s affordable (Image credit: Shutterstock / Boumen Japet)
Other factors (like a pandemic that forced everyone inside) probably helped a bit. But fundamentally, getting a solid VR headset for $ 299 / £299 / AU$ 479 is a very attractive offer. It could be better specs-wise but it’s more than good enough and offers significantly more bang for your buck than the PC-VR rigs and alternative standalone headsets that set you back over $ 1,000 when you factor in everything you need.
Meta’s Quest Pro, the first headset it launched after the Quest 2 that has a much more premium $ 999 / £999 / AU$ 1,729 price (it launched at $ 1,500 / £1,500 / AU$ 2,450) has seemingly sold significantly worse. We don’t have exact figures but using the Steam Hardware Survey figures for December 2023 we can see that while 37.87% of Steam VR players use a Quest 2 (making it the most popular option, and more than double the next headset) only 0.44% use a Quest Pro – that’s about 86 times less.
The Apple Vision Pro is too pricey (Image credit: Apple)
So by making its headset affordable, Samsung would likely be in a win-win situation. We win because its headset isn’t ridiculously pricey like the $ 3,499 (around £2,800 / AU$ 5,300) Apple Vision Pro. Samsung wins because its headset has the best chance of selling super well.
We’ll have to wait and see what’s announced by Samsung, but we suspect we’ll be disappointed on the price front. A factor that could keep this device from becoming one of the best VR headsets out there.
3. Controllers and space for glasses
We’ve combined two smaller points into one for this last ‘what we want to see’.
Hand tracking is neat, but ideally it’ll just be an optional feature on the upcoming Samsung VR headset rather than the only way to operate it – which is the case with the Vision Pro.
Most VR apps are designed with controllers in mind, and because most headsets now come with handsets that have similar button layouts it’s a lot easier to port software to different systems.
The Meta Quest 3’s controllers are excellent, copy these Samsung (Image credit: Meta )
There are still challenges, but if your control scheme doesn’t need to be reinvented, developers have told us that’s a massive time-saver. So having controllers with this standard layout could help Samsung get a solid library of games and apps on its system by making it easier for developers to bring their software to it.
We’d also like it to be easy for glasses wearers to use the new Samsung VR headset. The Vision Pro’s prescription lenses solution is needlessly pricey when headsets like the Quest 2 and Quest 3 have a free in-built solution for the problem – an optional spacer or way to slightly extend the headset so it’s further from your face leaving room for specs.
Ideally, Samsung’s VR headset would also have a free and easy solution for glasses wearers, too.
To ring in 2024 Meta has announced permanent price cuts for the Oculus Quest 2 VR headset and its accessories. The 128GB model now costs $ 249.99 / £249.99 / AU$ 439.99, while the 256GB version is $ 299.99 / $ 299.99 /AU$ 499.99 – saving you $ 50 / £50 on either model in the UK and US, or AU$ 70 and AU$ 80 respectively in Australia.
As for the Quest 2 accessories, the new prices are as follows:
Elite Strap: $ 49.99 / £49.99 / AU$ 89.99 – down from $ 59.99 / £59.99 / AU$ 84.99
Carrying Case: $ 44.99 / £44.99 / AU$ 79.99 – down from $ 59.99 / £59.99 / $ 89.99
Elite Strap with Battery: $ 89.99 / £84.99 / AU$ 154.99 – down from $ 119.99 / £109.99 / AU$ 189.99
Active Pack: $ 59.99 / £59.99 / AU$ 109.99 – down from $ 69.99 / £69.99 / AU$ 99.99
Fit Pack: $ 39.99 / £39.99 / AU$ 69.99 – down from $ 49.99 / £49.99 / AU$ 69.99
While a carrying case is useful, the Elite Strap with Battery is the best upgrade if you’re looking for recommendations. It not only extends the battery life of your headset but also provides a more secure and comfortable fit, thanks in part to the battery acting as a counterweight to the headset.
Oculus Quest 2 and Elite Strap with Battery (Image credit: Meta)
That said, some third-party accessories are just as good, if not better, and cheaper to boot, so you might want to consider those instead, even after these price cuts. Also, you should note that these accessories won’t fit the Meta Quest 3 – so don’t pick them up thinking you can get cut-price add-ons for your new VR headset.
Meta hasn’t said why the Quest 2 and its add-ons have had a price drop, though our guess is that it's to enable Meta to clear out stock and make room for the newer Meta Quest 3, and a first step towards phasing out the old VR headset.
The Quest 2’s twilight years
VR gadgets becoming cheaper and more accessible is a great thing in our book – it means more people than ever can experience what the best virtual reality software has to offer. But this announcement is bittersweet.
As great as the Quest 2 has been – single-handedly making VR mainstream for a start – its time eventually had to come to an end. With the Meta Quest 3 now here, and replacing the Quest 2 as our favorite affordable VR headset, it makes sense that Meta would make 2024 the year it starts to sunset the older model.
The Meta Quest 3 is here, and the Quest 2 is on its way out (Image credit: Meta)
That said, we shouldn’t get too carried away with eulogizing the Quest 2. It is still in production, and new VR software is still launching for the hardware – and likely will be for a while yet given how popular the gadget has been.
But this price cut is a sign that the headset is on the way out. We’d be surprised if many (or even any) Quest 2s were being made in 2025, and as time goes on the flow of new software will slow to a trickle before stopping completely – we’re seeing the beginning of this already, with new mixed-reality software being produced with the Quest 3 in mind.
So, as enticing as these price cuts are, be aware that the Quest 2’s expiration date is approaching. If you buy one now it’ll likely serve you well for a couple more years; but if you want a gadget that will receive full support for longer – and will deliver far better performance – then the Quest 3 is the Meta headset you want to buy in 2024, even if it is pricier.
The Meta Quest Pro has received an unexpected update – its face tracking can now follow your tongue movements.
One of the main hardware upgrades featured in the Meta Quest Pro is face and eye tracking. Thanks to inbuilt cameras, the headset can track your facial features and translate your real-life movements onto a virtual avatar. Because it's perfectly mimicking your mouth flaps, nose twitches, and eye movements, the digital model can feel almost as alive as a real human at times – at least in my experience with the tech.
Unfortunately, this immersion can break down at points, as the tracking isn’t always perfect, with one fault many users noticed being that it can’t track your tongue. So if you wanted to tease one of your friends by sticking it out at them, or lick a virtual ice cream cone you couldn’t – until now.
Meta has released a new version of the face-tracking extension in its v60 SDK, which finally includes support for tongue tracking. Interestingly this support hasn’t yet been added to Meta avatars – so you might not see tongue-tracking in apps like Horizon Worlds – but it has already started to be added to third-party apps by developers.
Rleased new #VRCFT modules for new #QuestPro v2 facial tracking with support for tongue.Supports (Air)Link and VD via VDX (when VD adds support) using the ALXR Local module and ALXR clients with the ALXR Remote moduleYou can download from here https://t.co/F37U2zA8is#VRChat pic.twitter.com/sUmfLaXVpNDecember 14, 2023
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This includes developer Korejan (via UploadVR) who develops a VR Face Tracking module for ALXR – an alternative to apps like Virtual Desktop and Quest Link, which help you connect your headset to a PC. Korejan posted a clip of how it works on X (formerly Twitter).
All the gear and nothing to do with it
Meta upgrading its tech’s capabilities is never a bad thing, and we should see tongue-tracking rolling out to more apps soonish – especially once Meta’s own avatar SDK gets support for the feature. But this isn’t the upgrade the feature needs. Instead, face tracking needs to get into more people’s hands, and there needs to be more software that uses it.
Before the Meta Quest 3 was released I seldom used mixed reality – the only times I did were as part of any reviews or tests I did for my job. That’s changed a lot in the past few months, and I’d go as far as to say that mixed reality is sometimes my preferred way to play if there’s a choice between VR and MR.
One reason is that the Quest 3 offers significantly higher quality passthrough than the Quest Pro – it’s still not perfect, but the colors are more accurate, and the feed isn’t ruined by graininess. The other, far more important reason is that the platform is now brimming with software that offers mixed reality support, rather than only a few niche apps featuring mixed reality as an aside to the main VR experience.
Mixed reality is great, and more can use it thanks to the Quest 3 (Image credit: Meta)
Even though they’ve been out for the same length of time on Meta hardware, there isn’t the same support for face tracking or eye tracking. That’s despite all the talk before the Quest Pro released of how much realism these tools can add, and how much more efficiently apps could run using foveated rendering – a technique where VR software would only properly render the part of the scene you’re looking at with your eyes.
The big problem isn’t that face tracking isn’t good enough – if it can track your tongue it definitely is impressive – it’s (probably) the Quest Pro’s poor sales. Meta hasn’t said how well or badly the Pro has performed financially, but you don’t permanently cut the price of a product by a third just four months after launch if it’s selling like hotcakes – it fell from $ 1,500 / £1,500 / AU$ 2,450 to $ 999.99 / £999.99 / AU$ 1,729.99. And if not many people have this headset and its tracking tools, why would developers waste resources on creating apps that use them when they could work on something more people could take advantage of?
For face tracking to take off like mixed reality has it needs to be brought to Meta’s budget Quest line so that more people can access it, and developers are incentivized to create software that can use it. Until then, no matter how impressive it gets, face tracking will remain a fringe tool.
Meta has teased a super impressive XR headset that looks to combine the Meta Quest Pro, Apple Vision Pro and a few new exclusive features. The only downside? Anything resembling what Meta has shown off is most likely years from release.
During a talk at the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences, Meta’s director of display systems research, Douglas Lanman, showed a render of Mirror Lake – an advanced prototype that is “practical to build now” based on the tech Meta has developed. This XR headset (XR being a catchall term for VR, AR and MR) combines design elements and features used by the Meta Quest Pro and Apple Vision Pro – such as the Quest Pro’s open side design and the Vision Pro’s EyeSight – with new tools such as HoloCake lenses and electronic varifocal, to make something better than anything on the market.
We’ve talked about electronic varifocal on TechRadar before – when Meta’s Butterscotch Varifocal prototype won an award – so we won’t go too in-depth here. Simply put, using a mixture of eye-tracking and a display system that can move closer or further away from the headset wearer’s face, electronic varifocal aims to mimic the way we focus on objects that are near or far away in the real world. It's an approach Meta calls a “more natural, realistic, and comfortable experience”.
You can see it at work in the video below.
HoloCake lenses help to enable this varifocal system while trimming down the size of the headset – a portmanteau of holographic and pancake.
Pancake lenses are used by the Meta Quest 3, Quest Pro, and other modern headsets including the Pico 4 and Apple Vision Pro, and thanks to some clever optic trickery they can be a lot slimmer than lenses previously used by headsets like the Quest 2.
To further slim the optics down, HoloCake lenses use a thin, flat holographic lens instead of the curved one relied on by a pancake system – holographic as in reflective foil, not as in a 3D hologram you might see in a sci-fi flick.
The only downside is that you need to use lasers, instead of a regular LED backlight. This can add cost, size, heat and safety hurdles. That said, needing to rely on lasers could be seen as an upgrade since these can usually produce a wider and more vivid range of colors than standard LEDs.
Diagrams of different lens optics including HoloCake lenses (Image credit: Meta)
When can we get one? Not for a while
Unfortunately, Mirror Lake won’t be coming anytime soon. Lanman described the headset as something “[Meta] could build with significant time”, implying that development hasn’t started yet – and even if it has, we might be years away from seeing it in action.
On this point Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, added that the technology Mirror Lake relies on could be seen in products “in the second half of the decade”, pointing to a release in 2026 and beyond (maybe late 2025 if we’re lucky).
This would match up with when we predict Meta’s next XR headset – like a Meta Quest Pro or Meta Quest 4 – will probably launch. Meta usually likes to tease its headsets a year in advance at its Meta Connect events (doing so with both the Meta Quest Pro and Quest 3), so if it sticks to this trend the earliest we’ll see a new device is September or October 2025. Meta Connect 2023 passed without a sneak peek at what's to come.
Someone wearing the Apple Vision Pro VR headset (Image credit: Apple)
Waiting a few years would also give the Meta Quest 3 time in the spotlight before the next big thing comes to overshadow it, and of course let Meta see how the Apple Vision Pro fares. Apple’s XR headset is taking the exact opposite approach to Meta’s Quest 2 and Quest 3, with Apple offering very high-end tech at a very unaffordable price ($ 3,499, or around £2,800 / AU$ 5,300).
If Apple’s gamble pays off, Meta might want to mix up its strategy by releasing an equally high-end and costly Meta Quest Pro 2 that offers a more significant upgrade over the Quest 3 than the first Meta Quest Pro offered compared to the Quest 2. If the Vision Pro flops, Meta won’t want to follow its lead.
The Apple Vision Pro hasn't yet made its way to any actual customers, but we're already starting to hear a few whispers about what might be in the pipeline for the second generation of Apple's augmented reality and virtual reality headset.
Sources speaking to MacRumors say that the Apple Vision Pro 2 is actually going to look very similar to the original headset, although there might be changes to the speaker configuration, with a flatter shape on each side.
We might also see variations in the design of the top vents, the report says, with the possibility that clusters of small holes will replace the existing strips. There's also talk of an audio accessory in the documentation, which might refer to an external speaker.
One of the key differences will be to the rear straps, MacRumors says. The 2nd-gen headset apparently has straps that are simpler in design, and “somewhat reminiscent of the flat straps commonly found on laptop bags or backpacks”.
The waiting game
It sounds as though the next model of the Apple Vision Pro is going to retain the external battery pack that the current model has, and MacRumors also says that most of the sensors and cameras will be similar as well.
A compass, ambient light sensor, magnetometer, and gyroscope are specifically mentioned, alongside support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5, and ultra-low latency audio, which is all very much as you would expect.
Based on the information included in this leak, what's known as production validation testing (PVT) is scheduled for 2025, which would mean a release date of late 2025 or early 2026. Of course, all of these details and plans could change over time.
We've previously heard that Apple is working on a cheaper Vision Pro model, but it's not entirely certain if this is it. Other improvements Apple is reportedly considering are to make the next Vision Pro lighter, more compact, and more comfortable.
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