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Meta moves the VR computer into a pocket puck to get the glasses to 100g
Meta's new VR Glasses leave the display and sensors on the face and move the processor, the memory and the battery onto a wired puck in the pocket. The Verge tried them at Meta's campus this week.
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What happened
- Meta is launching VR Glasses that rest on the ears like blacked-out sunglasses, with the components of a normal VR headset split between the eyewear and a computing puck carried in the pocket.
- The glasses weigh 100g, under a fifth of the Quest 3's 515g, with the rest of the hardware moved to the end of a cable.
- The display is a 5K MicroOLED panel Meta calls Infinite Display, running 2412 x 2288 pixels per eye at 37 pixels per degree and refreshing at up to 120Hz.
- Navigation works by looking at an element until eye-tracking cameras highlight it, pinching thumb and finger to select it, and making a fist with a moving thumb to scroll.
- Meta demoed Avengers: Endgame in a VR Enhanced Cinema build made with Disney and Industrial Light & Magic, where graphics in the surrounding environment tracked what was happening onscreen.
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Why it matters
- capability A device someone puts on for five minutes carries a different support burden than one that needs strapping on: The Verge's reviewer described the shape as something he could easily jump in and out of instead of a cumbersome commitment with big head straps.
- constraint Any unplugged session longer than three hours of playback needs the puck on a charger, and the cable from temple to pocket has to be accommodated by whatever the user is already wearing.
- decision Anyone shipping to this device now chooses between hands-only interaction and keeping a controller path alive, and Meta's own new Beat Saber mode Flux does both, playing with hands and with Quest Touch Plus controllers.
Someone has to decide which pocket the puck goes in, and whether the cable runs inside the shirt or outside it. Only the display and the sensors ride on your face; the Snapdragon Reality Elite processor, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of storage and the battery are all on the other end of the wire [4]. Meta says the battery is good for up to three hours of media playback, and the glasses keep running while the puck charges [5].
Two published numbers set the size of the picture. Each eye gets 2412 pixels across at 37 pixels per degree [6], which comes out at roughly 65 degrees of horizontal field per eye [1]. Doubling 2412 across the pair gives 4824 [2], near the 5K in the product name. Colour passthrough comes from two cameras on the front [7], and the small and large widths cost the same [8].
Input is where a product team will spend its time. The Meta Ray-Ban Display needs a neural wristband for gestures like these; the VR Glasses use six external cameras to follow the hands instead [10]. Cameras have to see the hands, so in my view any interaction designed for hands resting at the sides, or below a desk, is worth testing early.
On The Verge's account of the demos, entertainment is the strongest fit, because of the big virtual screen [11]. The reviewer was shown a clip from James Cameron's Billie Eilish concert film and parts of the most recent NBA Finals, shot in a format called VR180 that gave a 180-degree view of the court [12]. Meta says VR enhanced versions of Avengers: Infinity War and Star Wars: A New Hope will be available when the glasses launch [14]. Work got a demo too, in the form of multiple screens [18].
Two tests decide whether this changes anything you are building. The first is whether the use survives a wired puck and a three-hour unplugged ceiling: a seated film or a half-hour training module fits, a full shift on a warehouse floor does not. The second is whether the interaction survives looking at a thing and pinching, with hands tracked by cameras, or whether it needs hardware in the user's hands. You can answer both before Meta publishes a price, and The Verge's hands-on does not include one [17].
What to watch
- Whether Meta publishes a price and a ship date, and how the small and large widths are stocked at retail.
- Whether camera-only hand tracking holds up outside a curated demo room, with uneven lighting and hands held low.
- Whether existing Quest titles add hands-only modes like Flux or stay on controllers.