What you have to know
- Meta is reportedly urgent pause on the Quest 4, now taking a look at 2027 for its arrival.
- As an alternative, the corporate is claimed to be hustling to drop a brilliant light-weight headset, codenamed Puffin, by 2026.
- Puffin ditches the cumbersome all-in-one fashion, rocking a tiny exterior puck for processing that matches in your jacket pocket.
- Puffin goes all-in readily available monitoring, so it’s cool for informal use however in all probability not hardcore gaming.
Meta is reportedly switching gears with its VR roadmap. As an alternative of launching the Quest 4 anytime quickly, the corporate is claimed to be hustling to get a complete new light-weight headset out by 2026. This one will reportedly have a separate compute pack, ditching the all-in-one fashion we’re used to.
In line with UploadVR’s sources, Meta has pulled the plug on “Pismo Low” and “Pismo Excessive”—the 2 headsets that had been within the operating for the subsequent Quest. That just about means we’re not seeing a real Quest 4 till not less than 2027.
The outlet studies that Meta is betting massive on a brilliant light-weight headset for 2026, powered by Horizon OS. Internally referred to as “Puffin,” this new machine is shaping as much as ditch the majority of previous Quest headsets in favor of one thing means sleeker and simpler to put on.
Compute-on-the-go
Puffin takes a unique route—it offloads the processing energy to a small exterior puck as a substitute of cramming all the things into the headset. It’s mentioned to be sufficiently small to stash in your jacket pocket. Whereas that may sound a bit like Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional’s exterior battery setup, there’s a key distinction right here that units Meta’s take aside.
The inside track first dropped final 12 months through The Information. As an alternative of the cumbersome look, Puffin is claimed to resemble a chunky pair of glasses and reportedly weighs below 100g.
On high of that, the machine is supposedly ditching the same old controllers and going all-in readily available monitoring. It is a cool thought, but it surely in all probability received’t lower it for critical gaming. That mentioned, Puffin displaying up doesn’t rule out a extra traditional Quest-style headset might nonetheless be within the pipeline in a while.
Moreover, Puffin is claimed to give attention to digital screens, letting you arrange a complete multi-monitor setup in VR. It’s leaning arduous into an expertise led to by the leading AR glasses, aiming to show your house right into a digital playground for each productiveness and leisure.
With Quest 4 supposedly pushed to 2027 on the earliest, Meta’s all eyes on Puffin to steer the subsequent wave of VR.
