By Dilmer Valecillos and Bobby Carlton
We got our hands on the Meta Quest Pro, Meta's $1,500 Enterprise MR (mixed reality) headset, and over the last few days we've been testing some of the new features available such as using this device with the Immersed application for no monitors work experience with and without color passthrough.
Check out our unboxing video as our Head of R&D, Dilmer Valecillos looks at the headset from a developers perspective and runs a few tests with the Movement SDK including body tracking, face tracking, and eye tracking as well as deploying demos built for Meta Quest 2 to this new Meta Quest Pro mixed reality device.
There are a lot of really amazing features are built into the headset, but will the Quest Pro replace physical monitors and be something we see on everyone's workstation? It's hard to say. However, the MR headset shows a lot of potential and it is easy imagining some people using the Quest Pro as one of their daily work tools in the same way that we use computers, tablets, mobile devices, websites, and various apps throughout the work day.
One way Meta made the Quest Pro more enterprise friendly was by reducing the weight of the headset by using pancake lenses. These lenses provide a shorter gap with smaller panels, which allows for a much slimmer and lighter headset. They also deliver improved clarity with 25% sharpness in the center and 50% sharpness at the edges, which solves the "god rays" (a specific type of lens flare that looks a bit like a sunbeam shining through the clouds and right on your eye) issues that previous VR headsets had.
In the video posted on the FS Studio YouTube page, Dilmer looks at how hand tracking and facial tracking are greatly improved on the headset. At the moment, the Quest Pro handles upper body tracking very well, but there is also code in the headsets SDK that shows full body tracking is not far off. This could be huge for helping employees with work tasks and collaboration.
Keep in mind that the Meta Quest Pro is designed for enterprise use, however you are able to play VR games on the headset. Resolution Games are currently working on a cool AR demo called Spatial Ops, that uses the headsets full color passthrough to turn your real-world environment into an awesome multi-player shooter.
We are just scratching the surface of what the Meta Quest Pro can do, and as our team spend more time with the headset, we will be able to provide you with more in-depth ways that we think the Quest Pro will be successful as a work tool for many industries focused on automation, robotics, and with employees out in the field or at a desk.