As rumored over the past few months, Meta’s upcoming high-end VR headset Project Cambria seems to be named Quest Pro. And an apparent unboxing video has leaked too, which gives us a good look at the company’s next VR headset and controllers.

We saw the exterior box of Meta Quest Pro pop up on Reddit over the weekend, but a new video seems to have completely blown the cover off Meta’s next VR headset. Here’s a look at the box below for reference:

Image courtesy ‘dilmerv’

The video was obtained by Spanish language PC gaming streamer Zectariuz Gaming and posted to their Facebook, showing off the headset’s exterior and controllers.

The images above, appended with the ‘Engineering Sample’ sticker, are also seen on the box in the video, suggesting that either final or very near-final versions of the hardware aren’t just in the hands of trusted developers.

Here’s a breakdown of what we see in the video if you haven’t caught our previous coverage. Meta Quest Pro is a high-end VR headset capable of AR interactions thanks to its color passthrough cameras, which are placed on the front part of the headset.

You’ll also probably notice the headset is remarkably more compact than Meta Quest 2, which is due to the inclusion of pancake lenses. Those, like the name suggests, are flatter than traditional Fresnel lenses, reducing the space between the display and lens for a slimmer, less front-heavy profile. The headset also includes eye and facial-tracking, although we don’t really get a good enough look at the inside of the headset to learn anything new here.

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The controllers are also a completely new design for the company, as you’ll see they’re missing the traditional infrared optical tracking rings seen on Rift, Rift S, Quest and Quest 2. The slimmer controller is studded with its own inside-out sensors that in theory should allow for more robust tracking since they don’t need to be within the line of sight of the headset itself.

Image courtesy Zectariuz Gaming

There’s still no definite word on specs or price, although that last bit of info is officially slated to be “significantly higher” than $800, solidly putting Quest Pro in the enterprise and prosumer space.

There are also rumors (still unconfirmed by Meta) on Quest Pro’s specs. The data below is courtesy Bradley Lynch of SadlyItsBradely, however since they aren’t official please take with a grain of salt:

  • 2,160 x 2,160 MiniLED Backlit LCD Panels (2)
  • Custom Pancake Lenses (2)
  • 16MP Color Camera for Color Passthrough
  • Eye + Face Tracking (IR Camera based)
  • Qualcomm XR2+ Gen 1 SoC
  • 12GB LPDDR5 RAM
  • 256GB SSD
  • WiFi 6E Support
  • ~5000 mAh battery

There is some decidedly more solid info on release for Meta’s next headset though. Speaking on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg let it slip that its “next device [is] coming out in October,” which suggests a Quest Pro will follow in the footsteps of Quest 2 by being release during the company’s Connect developer conference, which takes place on October 11th, 2022.

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Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 3,500 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • ViRGiN

    as always, Meta leads the way!

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    The iPhone 4 was leaked when an Apple engineer forgot his prototype in a bar in Redmond City. Unfortunate accident, but repeated a year later when another Apple employee lost an iPhone 5 prototype in a tequila bar in San Francisco. Maybe this is Meta’s first step to directly compete with Apple in XR, by taking a page from their playbook and leaking the Quest Pro by forgetting it in a hotel room. Or they are just traditionalists.

    • Till Eulenspiegel

      Joe Rogan left it in the hotel room.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        Needs more context due to the flexibility of the English language, because it makes quite a difference whether Zuck gave Joe the room or the headset, and whether the “He” who doesn’t want it refers to Joe or Zuck.

        • Till Eulenspiegel

          Don’t be so pedantic, are you a Facebook AI?

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Meta AI (/s, in case that wasn’t clear)

    • Meta’s first step to competing with Apple’s XR? Is Telsa “competing” with Apple in electric cars? Last time I checked, Apple isn’t even playing in the same field! What’s with this revisionist history?

      And don’t even give me that cellphone AR junk. It’s as gimmicky as it was with the Nintendo 3DS, when Nintendo did it back in 2011.

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        Okay, since this seems to have been completely lost: I WAS JOKING.

        cellphone AR junk. It’s as gimmicky as it was with the Nintendo 3DS, when Nintendo did it back in 2011.

        I see that you are joking too.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    The story that it would be left behind in a hotel room seems like utter bullshit to me. When he lifts the sleeve at the end of the video, you can see another Meta Quest Pro box, and there is no way someone would forget 2 large boxes (hell I don’t even believe someone would forget one large box like that).

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      Hanlon’s razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity”

      • Dragon Marble

        Could be both. This guy finds boxes left by a guest, decides to open them, and post the video on social media.

      • Guest

        Yeah, like there’s no other upcoming headsets out there they are front-running to upstage and steal some thunder from!

    • Octogod

      According to the poster they left several in the hotel room.

    • Guest

      And what sort of organization would pick a symbolic date of 9/11 to do something like that. Only one that messes around in right wing politics. Those packages just looked so randomly positioned there!

      • Andrew Jakobs

        What the F are you talking about?

        • guest

          Avatarizing money!

          • Andrew Jakobs

            Still not making any sense.

          • Guest

            WTf not making cents? At least they admitted that they’re not using eyetracking before anyone goes and buys their enemies headset.

    • Totally agree. Also because people with Quest Pro should adhere to severe protocols.

  • Tommy

    Too much for my wallet. I wish them luck though.

    • Elite-Force Cinema

      Then what do you want us to do about this situation? Give this headset an easy pass and hope that is flops so badly until it dies and rot in hell or what?

      • Tommy

        Don’t care. Not my problem. All I know is I’m not spending $1000+ on a VR headset.

        • Elite-Force Cinema

          And then what do you want to do after you said you will not spend $1000 on a VR headset, you clown? For you to force this thing to flop so badly until the point that it dies forever just so that you can make fun of this VR headset’s death by posting memes out of their deaths, just like Jacksepticeye’s dad and TechnoBlade, or what?

          • Tommy

            Lol, wtf? How old are you?

          • Elite-Force Cinema

            27 Years old, you clown! Why are you asking this shitty ass question to the point I think they should not exist forever?

          • Tommy

            Ok, you win.
            End of conversation.

          • AndroidVageta

            OK, it’s nap time or bed time for you. I don’t know what Meta’s plans are either considering they went from $299 for a headset, to $399, now to possibly $1,000+? That’s ridiculous and yes they will be ridiculed if it fails because the price is ridiculous.

          • Jim Cherry

            what if the 1k+ device is actually for professionals ;}

  • Bob

    3D printing, photoshop, premiere, deepfakes are actually a thing these days. Best to take videos like this with a huge grain of salt.

    • GunnyNinja

      The only salt here would be thinking someone could fake all of that for this crummy video.

  • Lucidfeuer

    A client of me recently asked me of Cambria “is it a real thing (ie. will this be a product we’ll use) or is it just another christmas tech detax gift (ie. a useless product they buy for employees to get “tech innovation” detax and assets inflation that just ends up getting the dust quicker and quicker)”

    When I saw the form-factor, I though “I’m sure they fucked the image and most importantly the FOV, but as an entry consumer device this could be a step up, especially if portable”. Then I saw the disgustingly stupid and bad ergonomic, but most importantly the fact that this is sold as a “pro” headset under the pretense of decade old eye-tracking and see-through tracking.

    I told him in the best of my competence, the same thing I’ve told him until now…

    • ViRGiN

      and then i went back to steam, purchased a humble bundle pack of 10 games for $5, put on my valve index, strapped my htc trackers, turned on my 4 lighthouses mounted in each corner of my basement, put two power banks in my pockets, plugged my valve controllers into them for that long battery life, and attached my tetherer to pulley system and replied to ‘a client of me’ that ‘meta will never get it right. peasants.’

      then i started vrchat, picked one of the 1000 female anime avatars in my collection, farted out loud, and said to myself. metaverse? i’ve been in metaverse for years already!

      • xyzs

        get a life

        • ViRGiN

          cake is a life

        • AndroidVageta

          Get a sense of humor…look at what he’s replying too. Are half the commenters on this site humorless autistic types taking everything too seriously?

      • Lucidfeuer

        Who are you?? Do you have hidden camera’s set in my office?

    • Octogod

      Imagine seeing a picture on a box and thinking you have any idea how it actually works.

      People like you are the problem with VR.

    • Arno van Wingerde

      My, you seem to have a lot of virtual knowledge on the topic…

  • Rudl Za Vedno

    It looks pretty legit to me and kind of underwhelming if true, given the price tag of $1500 (again if true).

    • Elite-Force Cinema

      Then what do you want us to do about this ‘underwhelming’ situation about the headset’s build quality, you clown? Give this headset an easy pass and hope that it flops so badly until it dies and rots in hell or what?

  • I can’t help thinking the inside-out tracking on the hand controllers is going to be an issue.

    For starters that requires some decent processing power, which means more battery power drawn. I know you’re suppose to charge them with the headset, after every use, so I suppose that’s not a huge deal.

    But on top of that, the hand controllers will be swinging around MUCH faster then the headset. In some cases whipping around wildly! The headset doesn’t seem to have much issue with quick head turns, but even at worst the head can only move a 1/100th as fast as a flailing hand.

    When you track from a semi-fixed position, like the headset watching the hand controllers, you can track a fast moving arc. It’s like watching a pendulum from a distance. But imagine your riding that pendulum on the very tip. Your speed gets to be huge. The world will be a massive blur.

    The camera will need to be extremely high-speed. High speed cameras need more light to see. Processing this image will require extreme speed as well. It all comes down to a technical wall these controllers will be pushing hard against.

    I have a feeling you’ll be able to move your hands so fast the tracking will get confused, perhaps even often.

    • ViRGiN

      acting like meta doesn’t optimize their controllers/algorhitms to the wildest beat saber players in existence is a laughable idea.
      if only there was a way for you to get in touch with carmack or mark directly… you could save them billions by saying it’s a bad idea.

    • MasterElwood

      Cameras don’t track the movement in VR controller – chips inside the controller do – 1000x times per second.

      Cameras only correct the drift about 30x times per second.

      Also: Carmark talked about new chips with much less drift. Maybe the new controllers need correction only 15 or 10 or maybe even 5x per second.

      That would dramatically reduce the processing power needed.

    • XRC

      All current VR tracking systems rely on bulk of tracking data from 9DoF IMU running at 1000hz. This includes headset and controllers.

      In comparison, the light house (base stations) tracking used by steamVR provides real world reference for drift correction, at much lower rate only 100hz.

      Nothing to worry about

  • Guest

    Did anyone see UploadVR’s interview with the guy that posted the video of the device? What a lost opportunity. UploadVR has always been the worst VR website in every way!

  • mirak

    no oled, no thanks

    • Smokey_the_Bear

      yeah, if the leaked specs are true, that’s a bummer, especially for the high price.

  • MATADOR

    But how long will they support Quest Pro? Aren’t they releasing two other headsets in the next two years? I still feel burned buying the Rift S when they discontinued it right after.