Meta’s subsequent high-end VR headset, the supposed Quest Professional 2, could also be unsure. However now there are experiences of a brand new inexpensive mixed-reality headset from the agency.
Based on The Data (by way of UploadVR), Meta has ditched plans for a mooted Quest Professional 2 premium headset in favour of a super-light, a lot decrease value headset codenamed Puffin.
Stated to resemble a cumbersome pair of spectacles, Puffin apparently ideas the scales at lower than 110 grams and but nonetheless gives pancake lenses and passthrough performance with cameras.
That is achieved due to separating out not solely the battery, a la Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, but in addition the processing {hardware} into an exterior tethered “puck”. For context, the Meta Quest 3 clocks in at 515 grams, so the headset a part of the rumoured Puffin system is much, far lighter than what we’re used to from VR devices.
The report additionally claims that Puffin implements a gesture based mostly management and enter system much like that of the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, moderately than bodily controllers. That suggests movement sensors on the headset too, solely making the low weight extra spectacular.
For now, that is all hearsay. And it is value remembering that Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, implicitly criticised the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional’s cable and exterior energy pack when he “reviewed” the system, saying that Meta’s Quest system was higher as a result of, “there’s no wires that get in the way in which while you transfer round – it’s an enormous deal.”
In fact, this new rumoured Puffin system is being described as blended actuality moderately than pure VR product. So, that barely totally different place might permit Meta to make use of a cable whereas not contradicting its fearless chief’s earlier phrases. Maybe Meta will declare wires are tremendous for blended actuality or MR however not VR?
The report says that the Puffin headset is not anticipated to launch till 2027, which is sort of some time off. Little doubt even when the report is correct at present, a lot can change between now and 2027.
However lighter and extra ergonomic headsets would definitely be welcome and must also assist VR, AR, MR (no matter!) crack extra mainstream audiences, even if you happen to might argue it in all probability will not be till the tech may be built-in virtually invisibly right into a pair of glasses and even absolutely implanted earlier than it turns into actually compelling.
