Meta Quest Pro
What is it?
The Meta Quest Pro is Meta's new headset designed for business and creators. It's the first in a new line of headsets that's built for collaboration, creativity and getting things done. Meta's line of thought of developing the Quest Pro comes off of the success of the Quest 2. They had come to the idea that VR is becoming more social and had innovations for fitness, gaming and work. The link to its product page is here: https://www.meta.com/quest/quest-pro/
Very Advanced
The headset boasts a lot of upgrades over the Quest 2 that allow it to be used in a creative and collaborative environment.
Tech Specs
The Quest Pro comes at a price of $1500 USD making it one of the most expensive headsets released. The price tag does reflect the new features and upgrades this headset received over the Quest 2.
The controllers are an upgrade from the Quest 2 with 3 cameras for spatial tracking, each contains their own processor, have an integrated battery which eliminates changing out AA batteries and have true touch haptic feedback.
They have the same shape but without the tracking ring since the controllers do their own inside out tracking. This also allows the controllers to be tracked without being line of sight of the headset. The controllers are also heavier with 154g compared to 126g from the Quest 2.
The headset itself has a changed design from the Quest 2 with a solid band around the head. The part of the headset on your face it much thinner and the some of the components of the headset has been moved to the back of headset, to offset the increased weight of 722g compared to 503g of the Quest 2.
The displays within the headset are 1920 x 1800 resolution displays for each eye giving amazing clarity. The hardware in the headset is 256GB of storage, 12GB of RAM, and a Snapdragon XR2+ which is 50% more powerful than the Quest 2. The headset allows for 1-2 hours of use and comes with a dock to charge both the headset and the controllers.
The Quest Pro also boasts a wider field of view to increase immersion when in VR. There are cameras a long the headset just like the Quest 2 but are upgraded to allow for full color pass through to implement the Mixed Reality.
The Quest Pro also has cameras within the headset to track facial movements. This allows for full facial tracking to show within Virtual Reality.
This can benefit being in meetings, using the headset and immersion by adding facial cues and gives the conversations more depth rather than looking at a static avatar.
Why is it a good use of VR and AR?
The Quest Pro is essentially an upgraded version of the Quest 2 that is aim for collaborators, designers and business. The use of VR and Mixed Reality allows for many different uses across many different areas. Productivity will benefit with the ability to have full color pass through. You can use your laptop screen as well as more screens that are in mixed reality. It would have the benefits of multiple monitors without the space being used.
Designers can utilize the virtual reality and collaborative capabilities of the Quest Pro. Someone designing a house can walk through the house as they design it, allowing for real-time and full scale mock ups and models. A team can work together to make the process efficient and more in depth. This depth of collaboration has the potential to really boost productivity and makes the creative process more immersive.
The upgrade over the Quest 2 and new capabilities give the Quest Pro the ability to further immerse the user and collaborate even more. The headset was made with collaboration in mind so multiple people can use the same environment and connect with each other in a way that hasn't been possible before. Facial tracking gives this a big boost to show as if the person is there with you.
Who are its intended users?
The Quest Pro is targeted towards collaborators, business and creativity. The processing power and increased capabilities of the Quest allows for use in more productivity oriented tasks.
Designers have the ability to use a variety of studio apps depending on their needs. An example app is Arkio. The app makes use of full color pass through to allow a user to design rooms and furniture alone or with friends. This app makes use of facial tracking to further immersion while designing.
Immersed is a VR Desktop app that makes use of the full color passthrough. The app allows a user to have their physical work environment in the virtual world wherever they are or even enhance their current physical work space.
With the enhanced capabilities, gaming would also be able to take advantage of the Quest Pro's upgrades. Better tracking, higher resolution and wider FOV would allow the user to be even more immersed and have a better experience. Although this would be more niche as the cost of the headset is high for only just casual VR gaming.
Games like "I Expect You To Die: Home Sweet Home" would be able to use full color pass-through to let the user be in an Mixed Reality world to game in.
What are the issues with it?
There are a few issues with the Meta Quest Pro. A glaring issue is its high price. The upgrades and new capabilities might seem like a step in the right direction for VR but this comes at a high cost of $1500 USD. With the headset targeted for creators and collaborators, it makes it hard to collaborate when it is very expensive to get multiple head sets. The cost alone would probably deter people from taking the leap and getting a headset for the purpose of creativity and productivity.
With the Quest Pro and its upgrades, there would also be a short list of apps that would make use of new features. Things like full color pass through or facial tracking is very new to developers and currently have limited uses. A user might be stuck with only a handful of apps that uses these features and wouldn't make the headset an attractive thing to get. There is also a learning curve for users to start being productive using the Quest Pro. Someone might be used to using a modeling software but might have to learn a whole new way of making models using the 3D aspect of the Quest Pro.
The Quest Pro also introduces some privacy concerns as well. With the upgraded pass through and facial tracking, many people might feel uncomfortable with the fact that the headset tracks every movement of their face. Concerns may arise for Meta to sell their facial recognition information to 3rd parties or even using the data gathered from full color pass through. Any data that is gathered will concern people if the company gathering it might sell it to 3rd parties.
There is also the argument of how useful this technology is today. Many companies might not see the need for using VR and Mixed Reality headsets. They might not want to make the investment of getting Quest Pros and for it to potential not see any sort of improvement in productivity or collaboration. Using new technology will have some growing pains and it is not known whether using the headset for a business or creative setting will catch on and gain popularity for it to be worth it.