Meta Quest 3’s more affordable sibling may have leaked in new renders

This could be the year AR/VR headsets finally become mainstream. While Apple’s Vision Pro offers a glimpse into the future of mixed reality (MR) at a steep price, Meta seems focused on making VR more accessible, as its Quest headset may be its most affordable yet. New renders may have just shown us the design of this cheaper pair of headphones.

It is reported edge Last year, Meta’s VR VP Mark Rabkin talked about plans to release a more affordable headset in 2024. Rabkin, known internally as Ventura, said the company’s goal is to “deliver the greatest impact to VR consumers at the most attractive price point” in the market. Rumors about this headset have been circulating for months. Now, we might be getting our first look at it.

A Recently leaked on X VR accessory seller VRpanda may have revealed the possible design of its upcoming headset. The post adds that the new headset may be called Meta Quest 3 Lite.

While it’s similar to past Meta Quest models, the renders appear to be missing the pricier Quest 3’s pass-through camera array. The affordable “lite” version of the Quest 3 needs to cut corners in some places to keep the price down. However, we don’t think this is Meta’s way of trying to save a little money.

Ultimately, the cost of the headset has more to do with the expensive chips processing the massive pixels per frame than it does with the cameras. Multiple reliable sources have claimed in the past that the upcoming Quest Lite headset will use the same Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset as the pricier Quest 3. Paul Furgale, director of engineering at Reality Labs XR Tech, also hinted in a blog post that “passthrough and MR will become standard features on all future headsets after Quest 3.

Additionally, the details contradict some early reports. Therefore, we recommend you take this render with a grain of salt. It’s unclear where Meta will try to cut costs, but rumors suggest the headset may not have controllers.