Thanks to a mix of interesting hardware and a real willingness to burn money, Meta is at the forefront ofvirtual reality. The company is the go-to choice if you’re looking to buy a standalone VR headset, and theMeta Quest 3released last year has only made that more certain. But the company’s headsets aren’t as cheap as they used to be, something Meta could soon address.
After picking up the pieces from the tepid reaction to theQuest Pro, the Quest 3 takes the best parts of that early, expensive mixed reality experience and makes them more approachable. The headset is thinner and lighter thanks to slimmer pancake lenses, its performance is better because of the new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 inside, and the addition of color passthrough makes all kinds of new mixed reality experiences possible. All of those new features meant Meta launched the headset at $500 as opposed to theQuest 2’s original $299 price.
Offering some of those features at a lower price is a natural next step, and based on what’s been reported about Meta’s road map of future products, there should be a cheaper version of the Quest 3 launching in the second half of 2024. Here’s what we know about so far.
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What we know about Meta’s cheaper Quest 3
The headset is probably called the Meta Quest 3S
Since the release of the Quest Pro, Meta has maintained two lines of Quest headsets: The Quest Pro, with more experimental features and higher-end specs, and the normal Quest, designed to give you the ideal virtual reality and mixed reality experience for a reasonable price. The Quest 2 hung around after the Quest 3 launched to catch anyone who wasn’t willing to spend $499 on the newest headset, and now the Quest 3S is primed to replace it.
The Verge reportedin 2023 that Meta was working on a more “accessible” version of the Quest 3 to be released in 2024, designed to “pack the biggest punch at the most attractive price,” according to Meta’s vice president of VR Mark Rabkin. At the time, the more “accessible” Quest 3 was codenamed Ventura, and now, thanks to what appears to be a mistakenly published Quest Store pagethat lists the “Quest 3S"as a compatible device, and what looks likeleaked slidesfrom a market research study, it’s likely that the Quest 3S is the official name Meta is going with.
It has a boxier design
Besides the new name, the leaked market research slides also prominently feature a headset with a distinctly different design than the original Quest 3. Rather than a smooth curve from the front of the headset to the sides, in these images of the Quest 3S, there’s a hard angle where the front and sides meet. The headset also appears to be thicker, closer to the size of the original Quest 2. Those changes seem to be confirmed by an image shared ina post from X user @ZGFTECHof what looks like an actual production version of the Quest 3S.
On top of those aesthetic changes, instead of three horizontal cutouts for the Quest 3’s camera and sensors, the new headset appears to have a cluster of three cutouts on the right and left sides of the headset, almost like eyes. These will presumably house cameras for inside-out tracking and passthrough (the video view of the outside world that makes mixed reality possible), but it’s not clear what else Meta would want to include. A depth sensor, like the Quest 3? Removing it might save on costs. Infrared illuminator, to make setting up headsets easier in the dark? It’s certainly a possibility.
These renders and the leaked are likely not the final version of what the Quest 3S will look like, but it does at least make sense that Meta would want to draw more of a clear line between its headsets. A different design helps create that distinction, and make it clear why a headset might cost a different price.
It won’t have a headphone jack, but it will have an “Action Button”
Outside the new design, Meta appears to be changing the hardware functionality of the Quest 3S in comparison to the Quest 3. According to leaked photos that were sharedon a Korean message board, the Quest 3S won’t have a headphone jack, but will include a new “Action Button” that might act as a physical control for turning passthrough mode on and off, according toan already published support page. The
Up until this point, each of Meta’s headsets shipped with a headphone jack for wired audio. Quest headsets feature built-in speakers that direct audio into the wearer’s ears, but wired headsets can improve immersion and privacy. Technically, Meta’s headsets are compatible with Bluetooth, but the delay a Bluetooth connection creates can sometimes be a distraction. There are ways around it, but it seems that for the Quest 3S Meta expects owners to use the built-in speakers or wired USB-C headphones while playing games.
The “Action Button” is a more logical addition. On the existing Quest 3, Quest 2, and Quest Pro go in and out of passthrough by tapping the side of the headset, a gesture that isn’t always picked up easily by Meta’s hardware. A dedicated button makes the process full-proof. Maybe Meta will even let it be reassigned to other common quick settings.
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It’ll have better performance, but worse lenses
One key example of those internal changes that’s been reported? A switch back from slimmer pancake lenses used to the larger Fresnel lenses that were used on the Quest and Quest 2.The Wall Street Journal writesthat Meta’s cheaper headset will use lenses that are “cheaper than those used in [Meta’s] most recent model, the Quest 3.”
In general, pancake lenses are thinner and lighter, and can be placed closer to the display (or displays), allowing for an overall more compact headset. Fresnel lenses are thicker and heavier and need more space between the lens and display. The broad trend is towards pancake lenses, but they’re more expensive to produce and require brighter displays because of how much light gets lost during refraction. Switching back to Fresnel lenses, and based on those market research slides, a 1,832 x 1,920 resolution LCD, would let Meta cut down on manufacturing costs.
Fresnel lenses are thicker and heavier and need more space between the lens and display.
Those savings could go towards including the newer Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip that made the Quest 3’s improved graphics and overall performance possible,one Chinese analyst writes.And to maintain app compatibility going forward, it would make sense Meta would want to keep the chip in the Quest 3S the same. For what it’s worth, The Wall Street Journal writes that the cheaper Quest headset would likely have a “a more advanced graphic processing unit than used in [Meta’s] Quest 2,” so there’s a growing consensus that this is the move.
It might ship without controllers
The Quest 3 and Quest Pro were both launched as being just as useful with controllers as they were used with hand-tracking alone, but including controllers in the box does introduce an extra cost. Most ofthe best virtual reality apps and games– like Beat Saber or Supernatural – rely on controllers to work, but as Meta pushes into productivity and entertainment use-cases and even cheaper headsets, that might change.
Bloomberg writesthat to offer a cheaper Quest 3 at an even more approachable cost, the company is considering leaving controllers out of the box entirely and making them a separate, optional purchase. Meta’s hand tracking has drastically improved over the years, but are there really enough things to do on a Quest without a controller? That remains to be seen.
A cheaper Quest is on the way
In comparison to theApple Vision Pro, Meta offers the best deal in virtual reality. But to reach the scale that the company clearly wants – the billions of users it’s social platforms have – a cheaper option is necessary. Based on what we know about what Meta has planned, the Quest 3S could be what anyone still on the fence about VR is looking for.
We’ll likely know for certain soon.Meta Connect, the company’s annual developer conference, is scheduled for Sept. 25th and 26th. If there was any time it would want to announce a new headset – or maybea pair of AR glasses– it would be there.
