Meta has teased a super impressive XR headset that looks to combine the Meta Quest Pro, Apple Vision Pro, and a few new exclusive features. The only disadvantage? Anything like what Meta has shown will most likely take place years after release.
During a lecture at the University of Arizona College of Optical Sciences, Meta's director of display systems research, Douglas Lanman, said showed a view of Mirror Lake – an advanced prototype that is “practical to build now”, based on the technology Meta has developed. This XR headset (XR is a collective name for VR, AR and MR) combines design elements and features used by the Meta Quest Pro and Apple Vision Pro – such as the open side design of the Quest Pro and the EyeSight of the Vision Pro – with new tools such as HoloCake lenses and electronic varifocals, to create something better than anything on the market.
We've talked about electronic varifocals before on Ny Breaking – when Meta's Butterscotch Varifocal prototype won an award – so we won't go into too much detail here. Simply put, using a combination of eye tracking and a display system that can move closer or further away from the headset wearer's face, electronic varifocals attempt to mimic the way we focus on objects that are close or far away in the real world. It's an approach Meta calls a “more natural, realistic and comfortable experience.”
You can see him at work in the video below.
HoloCake lenses help make this varifocal system possible while reducing the size of the headset – a portmanteau of holographic and pancake.
Pancake lenses are used by the Meta Quest 3, Quest Pro and other modern headsets including the Pico 4 and Apple Vision Pro, and thanks to clever optical tricks they can be a lot slimmer than lenses previously used by headsets like the Quest 2 .
To further slim down the optics, HoloCake lenses use a thin, flat holographic lens instead of the curved lens a pancake system relies on – holographic as in reflective foil, not like in a 3D hologram you might see in a sci-fi movie sees.
The only downside is that you have to use lasers instead of regular LED backlighting. This can add cost, size, heat and safety hurdles. That said, the need to rely on lasers can be seen as an upgrade, as they can usually produce a wider and more vibrant range of colors than standard LEDs.
When can we get one? Not for a while
Unfortunately, Mirror Lake isn't coming anytime soon. Lanman described the headset as something that “(Meta) could build with a lot of time,” implying that development hasn't started yet – and even if it does, it could still be years before we see it in action.
At this point, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg added that the technology Mirror Lake relies on could be found in products “in the second half of the decade,” pointing to a release in 2026 and beyond (perhaps late 2025 if we're lucky). .
This would correspond to when we predict Meta's next XR headset – such as a Meta Quest Pro or Meta Quest 4 – will likely launch. Meta usually likes to tease its headsets a year in advance during its Meta Connect events (and does this with both the Meta Quest Pro and Quest 3), so if it sticks to this trend, the earliest we'll see a new device will be in September or October. 2025. Meta Connect 2023 passed without a taste of what's to come.
Waiting a few years would also give the Meta Quest 3 its time in the spotlight before the next big thing overshadows it, and of course, let Meta see how the Apple Vision Pro fares. Apple's
If Apple's gamble pays off, Meta may want to switch up its strategy by releasing an equally high-quality and costly Meta Quest Pro 2 that offers a more significant upgrade over the Quest 3 than the first Meta Quest Pro offered compared to the Quest 2. When the Vision Pro flops, Meta doesn't want to follow suit.