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This year’s edition of Meta Connect hardly compares to the 2021 event—there was no company name change, and the avatars still lack lower torsos, although the latter will not be true for much longer. But Tuesday’s event did bring one major piece of news in the unveiling of the Meta Quest Pro high-end virtual reality headset.
Pre-orders opened Tuesday for Meta Quest Pro, which is slated to be available Oct. 25 at a price of $1,499.99.
The headset’s features include:
- Full-color high-resolution mixed reality, with the device’s high-resolution outward-facing cameras basting four times the number of pixels as their counterpart in the Meta Quest 2. The Meta Quest Pro offers stereoscopic mixed reality passthrough, which combines multiple sensor views to create a natural view of the world in 3D.
- Thin pancake lenses, increased pixel density, local dimming and quantum dot technology give the headset next-generation optics and reduce the depth of the optical stack by 40% compared to Quest 2.
- Meta’s first ever self-tracking controllers are more balanced to hold and provide improved haptic feedback, allowing for a full, 360-degree range of motion. The controllers also have built-in rechargeable batteries and an integrated charging solution with the Meta Quest Pro Charging Dock, which is included with the headset.
- Counter-balanced ergonomics bring a more comfortable headset that easily provides a great fit.
- Natural Facial Expressions and eye tracking make avatars more lifelike and help them mimic users’ facial expressions and eye contact.
- Its hardware statistics include256 gigabytes of storage, 12 GB of random-access memory, 10 advanced VR/MR sensors, spatial audio and a new Snapdragon XR2+ processor which is optimized for VR to run at 50% more power than Quest 2 with better thermal dissipation.
- Backwards compatibility with the Quest 2 application catalog.
- Multiple resizable screens can be opened simultaneously for multitasking.
- Adjustable levels of VR immersion, from fully open peripheral vision, to partially blocked (enabled by light blockers included in-box) or fully immersed (accessory sold separately).
- A default Home environment designed exclusively for Meta Quest Pro.
Meta also detailed productivity and work initiatives for the Meta Quest Pro with:
- Accenture: The company will work with Meta and Microsoft in the coming year to develop new experiences enabling companies to leverage VR.
- Adobe: Its Substance 3D apps for professional 3D creators, designers and artists are coming to Meta Quest Pro and Meta Quest 2 next year, and Adobe Acrobat will be added to the Meta Quest Store.
- Autodesk: Its collaborative design review app is being updated to take advantage of the new possibilities unlocked by Meta Quest Pro and give architects and designers a new way of reviewing 3D models in an immersive fashion.
- Microsoft: 365 app experiences (2D content from SharePoint or productivity apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook), Microsoft Teams immersive experiences and Windows 365 are coming to Meta Quest. Users will be able to join Teams meetings from inside Horizon Workrooms and use their Meta avatars for brainstorming, meetups and whiteboarding. Support for Azure Active Directory and Intune will also be added on Quest Pro and Quest 2 devices.
Next year, Meta will debut Quest for Business, a subscription bundle for Quest Pro and Meta Quest 2 with features including device and app management, premium support and access to the Microsoft Windows 365 app, Microsoft Intune and Azure Active Directory.
The newest version of Workrooms, 1.8, features more expressive avatars, breakout groups, sticky notes for whiteboards, a personalized office environment with multiple screens, integration with Zoom (coming early next year), 3D models and, down the road, Magic Rooms, which connect people in physically rooms and remotely and enable them to collaborate.
VR community and game platform Horizon Worlds is being developed on the web so it can be accessed from computers or mobile devices, and its toolkit is expanding beyond VR, with Meta saying people will soon be able to use scripting language TypeScript to craft more dynamic and interactive worlds, as well as importing tri-mesh items into Horizon Worlds and building parts of their worlds using 3D content creation tools like Adobe Substance 3D, Blender and Maya.
Finally, avatars will experience updates including the opening of an Avatar Store in VR later this year, availability in video chats on Messenger and WhatsApp, compatibility with gaming platforms Unity and Unreal Engine and, best of all, legs, with full-body avatars coming to Horizon first and more experiences over time.
Meta said in a blog post Tuesday, “Last year, we shared our vision for the metaverse, a future where you can be present together with the people you care about and jump into any experience from anywhere. We believe in this vision so deeply that we renamed our entire company after it. A huge social shift has taken place. A few years ago, the majority of time spent in VR was spent alone. Today, the vast majority of time spent in Meta Quest is in multiplayer experiences and the top apps in the Meta Quest Store are social.
The company added, “We’re seeing that many others also believe in this future. They’re living it, building new worlds, hanging out in VR and exploring what’s possible. The VR ecosystem is thriving as social interaction powers the success of the most popular experiences, and now, we’re shipping our first high-end mixed reality headset, a key moment on the road to augmented reality.”
