The Meta Quest 4 may not arrive until 2027, but for now, we may have seen a sneak peek of what the next VR headset is heading towards — and it comes with a mighty field of view (FOV).
Researchers at Meta Reality Labs have revealed VR and MR headset prototypes offering an ultra-wide horizontal FOV of 180 degrees, with a goggle-like design that hangs over the user's face. This is a huge leap over the Meta Quest 3, which offers around a 100-degree FOV.
In the report, the researchers demonstrate the VR and MR prototype headsets, comparing the views in virtual and mixed reality to those of a Meta Quest 3.
The VR prototype uses "high-curvature reflective polarizers" in a custom optical design to achieve its ultra-wide field of view, while the MR headset also offers the same FOV but uses 80MP cameras at 60 frames per second (FPS).
A video showcases the difference in view between virtual and mixed reality, and there's a clear distinction in what is visible. Notably, the Quest 3 is shown with a circular view of an office, with the prototype's FOV offering a wider horizontal view — now with a person in sight.
You can see the difference in views in both VR and MR below.
"We [developed] a pair of wide field-of-view headsets, each achieving a horizontal FOV of 180 degrees with resolution and form factor comparable to current consumer devices," the research report states. "Our prototype headsets establish a new state-of-the-art in immersive virtual and mixed reality experiences, pointing to the user benefits of wider FOVs for entertainment and telepresence applications."
As the report points out, humans have a horizontal field of view of around 200 degrees, so these headsets aim to bring our sight closer to what's seen in VR and MR. It also notes that other consumer VR devices offer a wide field of view, like the Pimax Crystal Super with its 140 FOV (as Road to VR points out), but "come at the cost of larger form factors, limiting physical comfort and social acceptance."
I can watch porn just fine on my Q3
No-one cares though
VR is failed technology
>>106141233okay when's the last time you played a vr game
>>106141372the fact you narrow it to only games speaks volumes. we're just ignore archviz, CAD, medical training, any fucking training? it's absurdly valuable. the air force uses it all the time. race car drivers use it all the time. idk what to tell you. just cuz you got bored of cooming after 5 minutes doesn't make the tech useless. that's on you, not the industry.
>>106141372Yesterday, and probably today after work again.
Why do you ask?
>>106141462that's cool what do you usually play
I usually play the racing sim games, works great in vr with a wheel
>>106141372I watched a billion dollar company have their annual town hall, where they played a video of their design team using quest headsets for product prototyping, where someone in NYC could hop in with their Tokyo team and bash product design together. You're not using your imagination, AR ultimately will trump VR but there are plenty of applications that companies valued at billions are using them for.
As for gaming however, I am one of the testers of the VR Tarkov mod, and it's the greatest gaming experience I've ever had
>>106141124 (OP)but wont it mean vr porn videos wont be wide enough?
>>106141124 (OP)I haven't used any modern VR sets, but is that what it really looks like? I thought it would at least have the same coverage as wearing glasses or something
>>106141124 (OP)none of this matters if i need a fucking meta account to use the damn thing
>>106141424If any of that was true then you would have seen a lot more interest in the Vision Pro. No one gives a shit except for hobbyist simmers and games. The Air Force only uses it because they want to recruit zoomers.
>>106142444this
when the fuck will Valve release the Index 2?
>>106142550delusional. there are way better options, like the Varjo XR-4. vision pro needs way more work done to it to catch up since it's trying to be an integrated apple product first.
>>106142600what's delusional is thinking spec sheets like the Varjo has is "better" when anyone that has actually used the fucking thing will tell you how terrible it is to actually use
>>106142711it has nothing to do with spec sheets, it's about software compatibility. the list is way deeper than what apple offers with the vision pro.
>anyone that has actually used the fucking thing will tell you how terrible it is to actually useyou mean all the people in the several industries i brought up? yeah i don't think so. even if you wanted to try and dismiss the massive performance difference in both the passthrough, foveated rendering, or autofocusing, it's straight up more flexible to use. i'm not gonna bother arguing with you if all you got is "these people don't like it"
>>106142749opposed to just trust me bro everyone across all these industries love it yeah sure bro
also i'm not saying the vision pro is good either but at least it works for what it is
>>106141372I played Gorn, Phasmophobia, and Assetto Corsa about 2 weeks back. Haven't gamed in about 10 days because I've been busy
>>106142822See
>>106141937The same company also showed off their custom trained Stable Diffusion model that their artists use to speedrun prototypes. Luddites don't understand all this shit is being scrutinized and implemented to a surgical degree
>>106142422You're looking at a 2d image it's not really representative of the actual thing up close to your eye.
Looking through the quest 3 lenses feels like Harry Potter glasses.
>>106142444You don't wtf are you talking about
>>106141124 (OP)why wouldn't you just make the above big enough to encompass the bottom fov? valve index does that, and has adjustable depth/width/height
>vr will be good this time. pinky promise.
>>106141124 (OP)the only valid use for VR googles is porn
>>106142422Nah it's absolute ass. Most modern headsets still have ~105 FoV, which is terrible for immersion on top of wearing that bulky thing on your head. At least with smaller form factor headsets it's somewhat justifiable but still ass, and they cost too much.
Definitely won't be buying another headset until they solve FoV, and despite OP's bullshit, it's unlikely that Quest 4 will actually implement that.
I picked up a Quest 2 about a year ago, and I can confidently say it's one of the worst pieces of tech I have ever fucking used. Even ignoring what
>>106142444 said, the whole design is flawed from the ground up. Even simple things like the amount of RAM and the cooling system are garbage. No joke, I have seen images online of people drilling holes into the top or the front of the damn thing because it doesn't have any ventilation. And that is completely ignoring that the damn thing is an overglorified smartphone.
>We bought Oculus and stole all of their unfinished designs and rushed them into the consumer market to make a quick buck. But we then realized that what we rushed out into the market was being reverse-engineered by the hobbyist market. We promptly shit ourselves and then spent all our efforts on a higher FOV as soon as possible, just so that maybe we can make a quick buck off the consumer VR market again, because this has been Zuck's dream since the 80s.
>>106144146whats your experience with vr? i would say it already is good
>>106142422No, not at all. The image isn't representative at all since your viewing angle is projected from a sphere and they're just slapping it on a 2D plane
>>106141372I don't play games in general. I use VR for CAD
>>106146966Is CAD easier to use with VR? Would you recommend it to someone starting out?
>>106142600Vision pro is just a hedge against possible future when AR replaces phones and/or laptops. It doesn’t matter if fagbook hardware is slightly better when you have an entire ecosystem (with unified ui since 2025-09! ) everybody is already familiar with and all the apps you want already work on it
Doubtlessly fapple wanted it to sell better but I don’t think they’re too bothered by low sales.
>quest 3 sales declining year on year
>rayban glasses only thing showing growth and stopping the department from being shuttered
it's time to admit that vr is dead
they should just figure out how mirrors work and then use mirror-based tech to make glassesless 3d monitors
>>106148551Glasses weren't the reason nobody actually wanted 3D monitors. They're just not all that exciting, even less so than current VR.
>>106149277It was part of the reason. Depth perception just isn't that interesting to justify the added inconvenience. VR is just 3D monitor + being isolated from the rest of the world in a heavy and very uncomfortable headset, it's just not worth the massive inconvenience that it adds. I don't think it is even possible with the current and near future technology to create a VR headset comfortable enough to make it worth using.
>>106149415>VR is just 3D monitor +head tracking and motion controls. It's completely different.
>I don't think it is even possible with the current and near future technology to create a VR headset comfortable enough to make it worth using.Yeah I think I agree.
>>106141124 (OP)I'm gonna buy a meta quest 4 and a battery pack and some cyberpunk looking wear and walk around the street like a transhuman
>>106149579I don't have much of an issue with it really, but there's always an initial few minutes where I'm trying to get it to settle right.
I hear having the battery pack on the back helps balance the headset.
>>106141233Because it is. Apart from hardcore sim autists, I've haven't encountered anyone using or talking about VR in years. Even apple's AR slop died.
>>106151223transHUMAN, not a troon
anyway I shouldn't walk, I should use a segway or something. Even more tech.
>>106144568Name a better stand-alone headset for the same price or cheaper than the Quest 2 or Quest 3.
>>106151183It's more of an issue of what you get for the effort put into it. I'd certainly be more willing to deal with the bulk and all that if it had more going for it in general, but the tech still feels as if it never progressed past infancy.
>>106151216Consumers sludgechuggers have nothing to do with technology.
>>106141124 (OP)cant wait to play VR Chat on it
>>106141233speaking about PC VR mostly dead-because multiplayer VR games dont get many people these days.. I remember years ago i played Push maps on PavlovVR every day, every day at least few of them fully populated. Today these days im lucky if there is at least open game with 20 people at saturday.. there are many multiplayer VR games i played before that are mostly dead today... VR Chat is at least always highly populated because you can play it even without VR
