Meta’s next headset will release in October, Mark Zuckerberg revealed on The Joe Rogan Experience.
Rogan said he tried the new headset before the interview, describing a demo with an alien in front of him. “When I moved my mouth, she moved her mouth. When I moved my eyes left and right, it’s tracking my eyes. When I make an angry face, it makes an angry face. It’s incredible.”
Based on Rogan’s description of eye & face tracking and the internal Meta memo leaked in late June, it’s almost certain they’re talking about Project Cambria. Announced at Connect 2021 as launching this year, Cambria is the public codename for a “high end” headset that will be sold alongside Quest 2 with a price tag “significantly” higher than $800, aimed at remote workers and mixed reality early adopters – though it will also run existing Quest content.
In July, a dataminer discovered the product name ‘Quest Pro’ in the Oculus iOS app — a name Zuckerberg also used in a CNET interview last year.
Quest Pro looks to have a more balanced design than Quest 2 with a slimmer visor, achieved through the use of pancake lenses, which allow the screen to be much closer to the lens. Meta has said it will have higher resolution cameras with color and a depth sensor for mixed reality, as well as built-in face and eye tracking to drive avatars in social experiences like Workrooms.
In April, a prominent supply chain analyst claimed the device will have dual 2160×2160 Mini-LED LCD panels, up from the less than 1832×1920 pixels per eye of Quest 2. Import logs for apparent development kits suggest it will have 12 GB RAM, up from Quest 2’s 6 GB.
Zuckerberg told Rogan Meta will share more details at Connect 2022, but the date for this event has yet to be announced.
