- Meta has two new VR headsets you may attempt
- They’re protypes that are not often accessible to the general public
- You will must attend SIGGRAPH 2025 to provide them a whirl
On occasion, Meta will showcase a few of its prototype VR headsets – fashions which aren’t for public launch like its totally fledged Meta Quest 3, however permit its researchers to check attributes once they’re pushed too far past present industrial headset limits. Just like the Starburst headset, which supplied a peak brightness of 20,000 nits.
Tiramisu and Boba 3 – two extra of its prototypes – are extra involved with providing “retinal decision” and a particularly broad area of view relatively than simply boasting unimaginable brightness, however like Starburster, Meta is giving of us the prospect to demo these often lab-exclusive headsets.
That’s, when you occur to be attending SIGGRAPH 2025 in Vancouver.
I’ve been to SIGGRAPH beforehand, and it’s filled with futuristic XR tech and demos that corporations like Meta and its Actuality Labs have been cooking up.
Although often the prototypes look similar to Tiramasu. That’s to say, just a little impractical.
Tiramisu does a minimum of appear to be a headset you may put on usually, even when it does appear like a Meta Quest 2 that has been comically stretched – Starburst, for instance, needed to be suspended from a steel body because it was far too heavy to put on.
However Tiramasu doesn’t appear like essentially the most sensible mannequin. The trade-off is that Meta can outfit the headset with µOLED shows and different tech like customized lenses to ship excessive distinction and backbone – 3x and three.6x respectively of what the Meta Quest 3 presents.
In consequence, Tiramasu is the closest Meta has bought to reaching the “visible Turing check”, digital visuals which might be indistinguishable from actual ones.
Boba 3, alternatively, appears like a headset you may purchase tomorrow, and the best way Meta talks about it, it does really feel like one thing impressed by it may arrive in some unspecified time in the future sooner or later.
That’s as a result of it appears surprisingly compact – apparently it weighs simply 660g, rather less than a Quest 3 with Elite strap at 698g. It additionally has a 4k by 4k decision, and – the explanation this headset is particular – it boasts a horizontal area of view of 180° and a vertical area of view of 120°.
That’s considerably greater than the 110° and 96°, respectively, supplied by the Meta Quest 3, and whereas the three covers about 46% of an individual’s area of view, Boba 3 captures about 90%.
The one subject is Boba 3 does require a “top-of-the-line GPU and PC system”, in response to Show Techniques Analysis Optical Scientist Yang Zhao. That’s as a result of it must fill within the additional house the bigger area of view creates, resulting in greater compute necessities.
Although Zhao did observe that Boba 3 is “one thing that we wished to ship out into the world as quickly as doable”, and it does resemble goggles in a approach – the design course Meta’s subsequent headset is alleged to be taking.
So we’ll must preserve our eyes peeled to see what Meta launches subsequent, however whereas only some fortunate of us will get to attempt Boba 3 at Siggraph, I’m hoping many extra of us will get to expertise the next-gen VR headsets it conjures up.
