{"id":861189,"date":"2026-09-26T09:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T09:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/861189\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T09:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T09:22:12","slug":"vr-headsets-are-so-cooked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/861189\/","title":{"rendered":"VR Headsets Are So Cooked"},"content":{"rendered":"

On stage at Meta\u2019s annual Connect keynote<\/a>, Meta\u2019s CTO Andrew Bosworth (\u201cBoz\u201d for those who partake) delivered one very salient message: \u201cVR gaming is alive and well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reason for that proclamation is twofold. For one, Meta has objectively pulled back from VR this year,<\/a> shuttering and kind of reopening the Metaverse,<\/a> axing VR gaming studios<\/a>, widening the eyes of onlookers (myself included), and casting doubt on the future of VR writ large. With that uncertainty looming over VR, Meta\u2014which has invested immensely in the future of mixed and virtual reality\u2014has incentive to convince folks that the VR train is still chugging along.<\/p>\n

The second reason for that statement is the more exciting one: Meta VR Glasses<\/a>. In case you missed it, Meta took the wraps off new VR hardware\u2014a pair of glasses tethered to a compute puck\u2014and, having tried it myself, the promise feels real.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good news for the future of VR and anyone who cares about it. It\u2019s bad news for one unlikely bystander\u2014VR headsets.<\/p>\n

Headset? Who needs it? <\/p>\n

The second I was done using the newly announced Meta VR Glasses, I had one gadget on my mind\u2014the Quest<\/a>. That\u2019s (obviously) because Meta VR Glasses are clearly in the same vein as the Quest; they\u2019re capable of XR passthrough, they can be used to play XR\/VR games, they can even be used for work if you\u2019re that type of person.<\/p>\n

\"Meta\u00a9 James Pero \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the only reason I had Quest on the brain, though. Meta VR Glasses don\u2019t just do all of that stuff, but they do all of the stuff in a way that (for the most part) feels\u2026 better.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because Meta VR Glasses are not a headset. When Meta says \u201cglasses,\u201d they mean it. These weigh just 100g compared to the Quest 3\u2019s 515g or the Vision Pro\u2019s whopping 750 to 800g. That\u2019s a big difference. While I didn\u2019t get a chance to use the Meta VR Glasses for an extended period, I could already tell they were going to be much less burdensome than wearing a computer over your whole head.<\/p>\n

And you\u2019d think that with that drastic size reduction, you\u2019d get a big compromise in overall quality, but from my experience, that\u2019s not the case here. First of all, the display is on par with the Vision Pro<\/a>. It\u2019s a 5K micro OLED with 37 pixels per degree. Jargon aside, that translates to a really sharp, really clear screen that you would actually want to watch and play things on. It\u2019s actually nicer than the Quest 3 and 3S in terms of resolution.<\/p>\n

\"Meta\u00a9 James Pero \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

Performance is still a question mark, but I did get a feel for some of that too, and\u2014with the help of Qualcomm\u2019s Snapdragon Reality Elite processor\u2014the puck attached to Meta VR Glasses seems sturdy. I played Beat Saber\u00a0with no noticeable lag, and both hand and eye tracking were very snappy.<\/p>\n

Oh, and speaking of hand and eye tracking, that\u2019s another advantage of Meta VR Glasses. The Quest 3 and 3s also let you use your hands as inputs, but in my experience, it doesn\u2019t feel nearly as quick and intuitive as Meta VR due to the lack of eye tracking. Controllers are fine, don\u2019t get me wrong, but nothing beats being able to just pop on a pair of glasses and get going, especially when you can play about 75 Quest titles with just\u00a0your hands, no controllers needed.<\/p>\n

As long as we\u2019re talking about games, I should also note that you can, in fact, play the entire Quest catalog of games, though some of those will require connecting Quest controllers.<\/p>\n

\"Meta\u00a9 Adriano Contreras \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

In many ways, Meta VR Glasses do everything as well as or better than Quest, but in a smaller form factor. Sure, you have to be tethered to a puck that\u2019s about the size of a phone, but is that really any more burdensome than feeling the weight of a whole computer on your nose and forehead? Is it really that much less immersive? For me, not really. Also, let\u2019s not discount the fact that you get three hours of battery life with a puck, according to Meta, as opposed to the Quest, which gets a little more than two hours.<\/p>\n

To be clear, Meta VR glasses don\u2019t have every advantage. Easily the biggest downside is the field of view (FOV). While the Quest 3 gets a 110-degree FOV, Meta VR Glasses get just 70 degrees. That\u2019s a very noticeable difference. I wouldn\u2019t quite categorize it as tunnel vision, but you\u2019re not going to get the same expansive view as you would on a headset.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also interested to see how light blockage compares. Without your eyes surrounded by a whole machine, you do get more bleed from lighting around you. My demo of Meta VR Glasses was in a fairly dim room, so I didn\u2019t notice many problems there, but using them in direct or indirect sun might be a different story.<\/p>\n

Just too many perks <\/p>\n

Still, even with those potential downsides, what you\u2019ve got is a machine that does a lot of what premium headsets like the Vision Pro do in a form factor that feels much, much, more palatable. If that\u2019s not a recipe for disruption, I\u2019m not sure what is. Price will still be a major factor, with Meta VR Glasses clocking in at $1,300, but Meta has Apple to thank for setting our expectations there. The Vision Pro debuted at $3,500 and now costs $3,700 due to the ongoing RAM shortage<\/a>. If you\u2019re comparing the two devices directly (and you absolutely could), $1,300 may not seem totally out of the realm of possibility.<\/p>\n

Meta may still have plans for additional Quest headsets in the works, but I\u2019d be lying if I said I wasn\u2019t skeptical about the Quest\u2019s future. Where do headsets fit in when you can do all of this stuff in a pair of glasses? Does Quest go more premium? Does it cater more to the entry level? Will you even want to strap a whole computer to your head when you know damn well someone out there is sporting a lightweight pair of glasses to do the same stuff?<\/p>\n

There are many questions left to be asked, but for me the overall answer is simple: VR glasses are the thing I want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On stage at Meta\u2019s annual Connect keynote, Meta\u2019s CTO Andrew Bosworth (\u201cBoz\u201d for those who partake) delivered one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":861190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1282,99802,8547,74,180],"class_list":["post-861189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-meta","tag-meta-connect","tag-smart-glasses","tag-technology","tag-vr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}