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With the introduction of the Quest Pro virtual and mixed reality headset by Meta Platforms, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has successfully entered the high-end market for extended reality technology products.
The new headset, unveiled at Meta’s annual Connect conference, will hit shelves on October 25 at a price of $US1500 ($A2368) and will offer consumers a way to interact with virtual creations overlaid onto a full-colour view of the physical world around them.
The launch is an important step for Zuckerberg, who last year announced plans for the device – then called Project Cambria – at the same time that he changed his company’s name from Facebook to Meta to signal his intention to refocus the social media giant into a company that operates a shared immersive computing experience known as the metaverse.
Zuckerberg has since poured billions of dollars into that vision.
Reality Labs, the Meta unit responsible for bringing the metaverse to life, lost $ US10.2 billion in 2021 and has lost nearly $US6 billion so far this year.
The Quest Pro features several upgrades over Meta’s existing Quest 2 headset, which overwhelmingly dominates the consumer virtual reality market.
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Most strikingly, it has outward-facing cameras that capture a sort of 3D livestream of the physical environment around a wearer, enabling mixed reality novelties like the ability to hang a virtual painting on a real-world wall or have a virtual ball bounce off a real table.
The Quest 2, by contrast, offers a more rudimentary greyscale version of this technology, called passthrough.
The Quest Pro is lighter and slimmer than its predecessors, with thin pancake lenses and a relocated battery that sits at the back of the headset, distributing its weight more evenly while reducing overall bulk.
For fully immersive virtual reality, Meta has added tracking sensors to the Quest Pro that can replicate users’ eye movements and facial expressions, creating a sense that avatars are making eye contact.
Meta is pitching the Quest Pro as a productivity device, aimed at designers, architects and other creative professionals.
In addition to offering its own Horizon social and workspace platforms, the company has also made virtual versions of Microsoft work products like Word, Outlook and Teams available.
At a preview of the device days before its launch, Meta gave reporters a glimpse of the type of user it had in mind by showcasing apps like Tribe XR, a virtual training environment for DJs learning how to use complex equipment.
Tribe XR is already available in virtual reality but a demonstration showed how passthrough technology may enable DJs to use the app to play real-world gigs, as it means they can look out past their virtual equipment at actual partygoers.
Meta plans to sell the Quest Pro in consumer channels to start while adding enterprise-level capabilities like mobile device management, authentication and premium support services next year, executives said at the press event.
They said the device is intended to complement rather than replace the entry-level Quest 2, which sells for $US399.99.
For now, that means the Quest Pro stops short of enabling the complex commercial applications Meta has suggested it wants its metaverse tech to support.
The company is still working on a mixed reality experience for its Horizon Workrooms app that would make a person’s avatar appear to be present in a real-world conference room with other users, which it is calling Magic Rooms.
Still, the Quest Pro’s price point puts it well under the cost of existing enterprise-focused devices like Microsoft’s Hololens 2, which was released for commercial use in 2019 and is already present in operating rooms and on factory floors.
An entry-level Hololens 2 sells for $US3500.
With AAP. (Content has been tweaked for length and style.)
Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.
