A-Questing We Shall Go
Last week the Quest 3 started to arrive in homes, and as the newest kid on the virtual reality block, it only made sense for us to put the hardware through its paces and see how it performs.
The latest in the Oculus family
As an Android-based device, the Quest series will always be limited compared to what a VR headset can do when it’s connected to a computer with a full-fledged video card, but within that context, it is a very nice headset. It is comfortable to wear (though the stock headstrap should be swapped out as soon as possible) and provides as deep an immersive experience as we could want. Where the Quest 3 gets really interesting, however, is in augmented reality.
The passthrough of the Quest 3 is full color and excellent. If a phone notification comes in while someone is using the Quest 3, they no longer need to lift up the visor in order to see their phone; a simple double-tap on the side of the headset activates the passthrough and any messages can be read straight through the display. This also allows users to take full advantage of the untethered nature of the Quest and easily move throughout their environment with the headset on.
On the minus side, battery life is fairly short, and despite being untethered, it is strictly an indoor device as the sun can damage the lenses (as to whether you’d want anyone seeing you wearing it outside is a different question). There are some artifacts in passthrough mode that don’t make it quite as good as no visor at all, but you can see how in a couple more iterations we may be at the stage where we just don’t take these off any more.
Maybe what Star Trek didn’t get is that we’ll all look like Geordi La Forge in a few years
While it’s unclear how much people are interested in mixed reality experiences, if mixed reality does become a thing, the Quest 3 is ready to deliver. In the meantime, it is a more powerful and more comfortable headset for VR experiences than the previous entrants in the Quest lineup. We have been having a great time with it, and since it was no trouble to add it as a new target platform for the Unreal Engine, we will be building to support it from here on out.
As ever,
Justin @ Archmagus
