Last October Meta informed us of the arrival at the end of 2023 of the replacement for its spearhead, the Meta Quest 2. Its CEO Mark Zuckerberg even added that the price of the future headset would be in the same price range as the Quest 2, i.e. between 450 and 550 euros. Just last Thursday, at a conference dedicated to the results of the last quarter of the past year, he told investors that during 2023, the company was preparing to launch the new generation of consumer headphones. This helmet which should, logically, be the Meta Quest 3will have the Meta Reality like the Quest ProTHE flagship current brand.
This confirms the integration of a pass-through in quality color in the brand’s next figurehead, but could it be otherwise at a time when competitors like the PICO 4, or the HTC VIVE XR Elite which will be released on February 25, already offer it ?
THE Meta Quest 2 allowed by a manual anchoring system to recreate part of your environment, walls and furniture, via its pass-through black and white, and to interact with it somewhat. The Quest Pro had to go much further and be able to analyze your environment to reconstruct it digitally in three dimensions in order to convincingly mix the virtual and physical worlds, and thus provide access to quality mixed reality.
To achieve this, it relies on a technology called Meta Reality which integrates real-world colors into the visual rendering of the headset. This amalgamation is made possible by the use of two high-definition stereoscopic cameras in shades of gray, associated with an artificial intelligence which will generate a three-dimensional frame on which will be grafted the images provided by the pass-through color in high definition, too.
The Quest 3 will therefore benefit from this same technology which, if we are to believe the leaks launched by the YouTuber Brad Lynch, would be associated with the new chipsets QualcommTHE Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2. This new chip would be based on the very recent Snapdragon 8 second generation that will equip the flagships of the smartphones of 2023. Import logs tell us that this chip offers almost 50% more performance per Watt and about 150% more peak performance compared to the XR2 Gen 1.
Still according to the same rumors, although neither taking advantage of theeye tracking nor of face tracking, the Meta Quest 3 would have type lenses pancakes giving it a form-factor thinner than its predecessor, as well as a definition 30% higher than the latter, but above all a depth sensor. This same sensor, absent from the Pro model (see article), while announced by Mark Zuckerberg himself, would allow an even more precise relief representation of your ecosystem and better interaction with it.
As shown in the illustration above, if the MR gives the capacity to modify the textures of an object, to make it disappear or to replace it by another, it will allow above all better interactivity in applications and games between the user and his real environment for even greater immersion.
The future Meta Quest 3 should therefore be marketed for both virtual reality and mixed reality. in the same way as the Quest Probut for a much more affordable price.
You want to get started in mixed reality, but you are too impatient to wait until the end of the year, you can always get the Meta Quest Pro at the house of Amazon.