Update: Meta Quest Pro hands-on: The future of the metaverse is here for $1,500.
When Mark Zuckerberg revealed in 2021 that Meta (formerly Facebook) was working on a new virtual reality headset codenamed Project Cambria, we were promised it would be coming “next year.” That's now this year, and with the headset launch now eight months away at most, leaks should begin coming thick and fast,
Tipster Brad Lynch — who has previously predicted MiniLED screens for Cambria — believes he’s got the final design sussed thanks to his supply chain sources.
Meta Cambria (SeaCliff) will release later this yearGot confirmation from the supply chain and sourced who’ve tried the device that this is exactly what the final PVT model looks like pic.twitter.com/FQnKDyyjDAApril 13, 2022
Pre-release renders are always a bit of a guessing game given companies’ love of prototypes, but Lynch is very confident this is “exactly what the final PVT model looks like.” How confident? “Conviction that these models are correct: 250%,” he wrote in a follow-up tweet.
Some of that conviction could come from the fact that it looks pretty similar to the brief glimpse we got in Meta’s teaser trailer.
The Project Cambria design looks a bit more lightweight and stylish than the Oculus Quest 2, which is impressive given we know that there’s a lot more sophisticated stuff going on inside. Such a light build is likely possible thanks to what Meta’s Angela Chang calls “pancake optics” — a way of “folding light several times over to achieve a slimmer profile than current lenses.”
That means extra features are possible without more bulk. Said features are a bit hazy at the moment, but we do have a few tidbits. It will contain sensors sensitive enough to capture facial expressions, for example, and it’ll also support “high-resolution, colored mixed reality passthrough,” Chang said back at the reveal.
Who exactly this Project Cambria headset — known as the Oculus Quest Pro in some quarters — targets is a bit unclear at the moment. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg cited a business example for this passthrough tech where you could write on paper at your desk without taking off the headset, for example, and we know his long-term vision for the Metaverse feels quite business-focused in scope. And while we know the headset will play Oculus Quest 2 content, it “isn’t the next Quest” according to Zuckerberg.
If it’s pitched as a consumer-friendly produce, we may find out more very soon: the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase is taking place on Wednesday, and that would be a golden opportunity to reveal new hardware alongside the inevitable slew of VR games coming to current-gen headsets. The gaming showcase kicks off at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m .PT, and you can watch on Meta’s own Facebook platform, as well as rivals like YouTube and Twitch.
