The “subsequent technology shopper Quest” will launch “later subsequent 12 months”, Meta’s CFO informed traders.

Throughout Meta’s Q3 2022 earnings name, Susan Li talked about the headset whereas warning traders of accelerating prices subsequent 12 months:

“Conversely, our development in price of income is anticipated to speed up, pushed by infrastructure-related bills and, to a lesser extent, Actuality Labs {hardware} prices pushed by the launch of our subsequent technology of our shopper Quest headset later subsequent 12 months.”

Actuality Labs is the division of Meta behind Quest headsets, sensible glasses, Meta Avatars, Horizon, and analysis & growth in the direction of future gadgets such because the neural wristband mission and AR glasses.

Earlier this month Mark Zuckerberg informed Stratechery “there can be a Quest 3 and that’s within the worth vary of $300, $400, or $500, that zone”, however stated it isn’t launching this 12 months. He first confirmed Quest 3 was in growth in an interview final 12 months. Quest 2 is the present shopper Quest so given Zuckerberg’s feedback, Li is sort of actually referring to Quest 3.

Li’s reference to price development suggests this $300-$500 worth can be achieved by means of subsidization, simply as Quest 2’s $300 launch worth was.

So what can we find out about Quest 3 thus far, and what has been apparently leaked?

Throughout Join 2022, “Consulting CTO” John Carmack stated Meta’s future headsets, presumably together with Quest 3, will assist 120Hz refresh fee.

Late final month obvious schematics of Quest 3 had been leaked to YouTuber SadlyItsBradley (Brad Lynch). Not like the just-released Quest Professional, the headset depicted didn’t have both eye or face monitoring. It did, nonetheless, have a slimmer design than Quest 2 achieved with pancake lenses, and a depth sensor for combined actuality. It’s doable although that Meta has a number of prototype candidates for Quest 3, and the headset seen in that leak is only one of them.

Quest 3’s largest obvious enchancment isn’t one thing you’d see in schematics although. Present mainstream standalone headsets – together with Quest 2 and Pico 4 – use the primary XR2, which was just lately retroactively labeled Gen 1 by Qualcomm. XR2 Gen 1 is a variant of the Snapdragon 865 smartphone chip that first shipped in early 2020. However Qualcomm has since adopted up the 865 line with two new generations, 888 and eight Gen 1 (the corporate modified the naming scheme with the discharge of the most recent mannequin).

Meta & Qualcomm just lately introduced a multi-year partnership to construct next-generation Snapdragon XR chipsets, and a supply of Lynch informed him Quest 3 will use the yet-to-be-announced Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2. 

Import logs point out XR2 Gen 2 is predicated on Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, anticipated to be introduced on the Snapdragon Summit subsequent month. If the brand new chipset’s GPU gives even a modest efficiency leap over 8 Gen 1, Quest 3’s GPU can be no less than twice as highly effective as Quest 2’s. This is able to allow greater constancy graphics on greater decision shows – and even perhaps totally new video games that merely wouldn’t be doable on Quest 2.

Meta introduced Quest 2 and Quest Professional at its yearly Join convention, which takes place round October. “Later subsequent 12 months” suggests Join 2023 is when Quest 3 needs to be introduced.

Meta declined to remark past what was stated within the earnings name.