Quest Pro’s battery is larger than Quest 2’s and should last longer if you aren’t using the new features, John Carmack claimed.
Meta officially revealed Quest Pro last week. Most of its specs are superior to Quest 2, but whereas Quest 2 has a battery life of 2-3 hours, Meta listed Quest Pro’s battery life as just 1-2 hours. You could use a USB-C battery pack to extend it, but the extra hassle detracts from the appeal of frictionless standalone VR.
If “Consulting CTO” John Carmack is to be believed though, this figure only applies when using Quest Pro’s new features. “It’s got a larger battery. If you use it just like a Quest 2, without engaging any of the new features, you know, it should last longer,” he said during his Connect 2022 unscripted talk.
Quest Pro’s new features are eye tracking, face tracking, and color passthrough for mixed reality.
Eye tracking and face tracking are optional for privacy reasons. You can disable them system-wide – though you’ll miss out on eye-tracked foveated rendering and your avatar won’t show your facial expressions. Avoiding color passthrough would require not using mixed reality apps, and using a virtual environment instead of passthrough for your home scene.
These features represent much of the appeal of Quest Pro though, and listing the battery life on the spec sheet with them in mind makes sense. Without those features, it would essentially just be a slimmer Quest 2 with sharper lenses & better contrast. So while Carmack’s claim may be correct, it’s probably not much of a consolation for anyone putting down $1500 for Meta’s latest headset.
