A new week starts, so it’s time for me to write you about the most important XR news of the week! But there is one particular piece of non-news that many people are asking me about: why are there no updates about Project Moohan? Effectively, it may seem weird that Google is not building any hype around that, but I think that one of the reasons for what seems to be a soft launch is that if the price is the rumored high one, Google knows that it won’t sell many devices. And if it builds too much hype, the risk is the “VR is dead” effect a few months later when journalists discover that the headset didn’t sell as well as hoped. This is just a speculation of mine… let’s see what is actually going to happen during the next weeks.
Top news of the week
Meta Reality Labs’s revenues are up thanks to smartglasses
Meta shared the financial data from the last quarter, and there are some interesting insights we can extrapolate from it. The revenues of the Reality Labs division are up 5% compared with the previous year. But this is not thanks to the sales of Quest devices, because they are actually down. It is all thanks to Ray-Ban Meta glasses, which are selling like hot cakes. Meta is working with EssilorLuxottica to increase the production of the glasses by the end of this year. Luxottica confirmed the great moment of glasses in its own financial data, saying that Ray-Ban Meta is selling 3 times more than the same time last year. And an analysis by Artillery Intelligence estimated that the number of Ray-Ban Meta sold in the last quarter (circa 600K) exceeds the compound number of Quest 3 and Quest 3S (circa 500K).
I think we are witnessing a shift in our market. As I’ve said in another post of mine, I think the new cycle of mixed reality headsets just failed to reach the desired interest. There’s no compelling Mixed Reality app, and most people are buying the Quest 3S to buy purely VR games like Gorilla Tag and Animal Company. I guess this is the reason why Meta scrapped the previous design of the Quest 4: it makes no sense to keep iterating on a design that does not work. There are hopes for the next lightweight mixed reality glasses with a natural interface codenamed Puffin/Loma, but we probably need to wait for 2026 to see them.
In the meantime, it’s smart glasses that are getting the interest of people. They are lightweight, stylish, and affordable. Plus, they are the perfect interface for AI, which is the other futuristic technology Meta is working on. So it makes sense that currently, Meta is paying a lot of attention to smartglasses. Mark Zuckerberg even stated in a recent interview that in the future, whoever won’t use the glasses will be at a disadvantage, because glasses can empower humans through AI. He even said that they are the path that leads to the metaverse (yes, he said the M-word again!). Let’s see if smartglasses will truly be the Trojan horse to make people start putting tech glasses on their faces for the whole day…
More info (Meta shares its financial data)
More info (Luxottica shares data about the sales of smartglasses)
More info (Estimates about the sales of Quest vs Ray-Ban Meta)
More info (Mark Zuckerberg talking about the advantages given by smartglasses)
Other relevant news
Meta suggests the ideal time for a VR session is between 20 and 40 minutes
One of the most discussed topics of the week was a blog post in which Meta shared some useful information about the ideal time for a VR session. After conducting extensive research, Meta suggested that the Goldilocks zone for a VR session is between 20 and 40 minutes. (If you are not a native English speaker, like me, you should know that “goldilocks” basically means that it feels exactly right, just right, and the name comes from a fairy tale.)
Why 20–40 minutes? Because if it is shorter than 20 minutes, enjoying the experience is not worth the effort of putting your headset on, turning it on, waiting for updates, etc… If it is longer than 40 minutes, the effects of the discomfort of the headset start taking a toll on the user. I can confirm this also by my own experience: if I just have to check a quick thing on the headset, I find it too time-consuming to turn it on. And if I wear the Quest for more than 1 hour, I start feeling pain on my forehead.
Some people misunderstood the lesson, thinking that Meta suggested people make games lasting 40 minutes in total. Actually, what Meta is suggesting developers is to create games where every chunk of the experience lasts between 20–40 minutes. This may mean every mission, every level, every quest… whatever fits the game you are building. This way, users can have their satisfying session, then eventually take a break and return to VR later for another 20–40 minute session.
Meta also suggests being careful and not using the same strategies on VR and mobile in case your content is cross-platform: mobile may have a shorter session length, but has also less friction to run content. So, for instance, you can make a reward on mobile for having just logged in the game daily, but this makes no sense in VR, because no one would turn on the headset just to log in a game.
Keep this lesson in mind when developing your next game!
More info (Meta’s suggested “Goldilocks” zone — Road To VR)
More info (Meta’s suggested “Goldilocks” zone — Upload VR)
Brilliant Labs launched Halo glasses
Brilliant Labs announced its third product: the Halo smartglasses. Halo smartglasses are truly made to be worn the whole day: they weigh slightly more than 40 grams and have a battery that can last up to 14 hours. Thanks to a microphone system and a camera system, the glasses can perceive the world around you. What you have around you can be analyzed by the glasses’ AI assistant, Noa, to support you in your daily activities. One special thing about Noa is that it’s being built so that it remembers everything about what you asked or what you saw, even after a long time. This way, the AI can assist you by knowing not only your present, but also your past. This is crucial to have an assistant who can follow your progress over the years.
Brillian Labs Halo also has bone conduction speakers, which compromise a bit of audio quality to let your ear be free to perceive the world around you. But what surprised people the most is the use of the same display type seen in the Halliday glasses (which I never tried, so I can not judge it). Display is RGB, which is good, but it is monocular, which is bad.
The glasses are fully open-source, so you can do everything you want with them. Plus, the company tried to build them with privacy in mind: for instance, the AI never accesses the raw images of the world around you, but only some mathematical representation of them (maybe an embedding, it hasn’t been explained in detail). These are both good things.
The glasses are available in limited quantity and can be preordered for $299 + VAT + shipping on Brilliant Labs’s website. I have already preordered mine, because I want to do some experiments with AI and smartglasses, and these open glasses seem a good choice for that.
News worth a mention
Meta and Stanford unveil ultra-thin XR glasses
Meta and Stanford have just published the results of a research project aimed at building ultra-thin MR glasses. Notice that I’m talking about mixed reality glasses (a la Vision Pro) and not augmented reality glasses (a la Magic Leap), so having achieved a very small form factor is a remarkable result.
At just 3 millimeters thick, its optical stack integrates a custom-designed waveguide and a Spatial Light Modulator (SLM), which modulates light on a pixel-by-pixel basis to create “full-resolution holographic light field rendering” projected to the eye. Thanks to the use of holography, the glasses don’t just output stereoscopic images, but lightfields with true depth, meaning that there is no convergence-accomodation conflict. You can just focus on where the objects are and see them with their true 3D shape.
This technology allows for mixed reality headsets that are as small as glasses, but unluckily, this is just a research project for now, which most probably will take years before being implemented (IF it will ever be implemented) into commercial products. So don’t hold your breath for such glasses being released next year.
More info (Meta & Stanford research — Road To VR)
More info (Meta & Stanford research — Upload VR)
Meta Avatars can now change the hairstyle
Meta has published a new research paper related to its photorealistic Codec Avatars. The paper, called “HairCUP: Hair Compositional Universal Prior for 3D Gaussian Avatars”, shows a new system that builds on the Gaussian-splat-based Codec Avatars from last year. The new system adds a compositional split between the head and hair, which basically makes the two systems more independent. Thanks to this, it is possible to take an avatar and change its hairstyle, while keeping it incredibly realistic. The results are impressive, like all the work on Codec Avatars: you can see your face with dozens of hairstyles. This could be useful not only for avateering, but could also be a fantastic tool for stylists to show people what their new hair may look like.
Meta updates its avatars
Meta is continuing to update its avatars, on the road that hopefully will bring us to the Codec Avatars. The latest update offers more customizations for the body shape and the face, so that you can make your avatar resemble you as best as possible. New clothes have also been made available. There is also now an AI system that can choose the clothes to wear for you if you just describe to it what style you want to appear with.
More info (Meta avatar update — Road To VR)
More info (Meta avatar update — Upload VR)
Alibaba unveils its smartglasses
Chinese giant Alibaba has entered the smartglasses field with the announcement of the Quark AI Glasses. The very lightweight glasses will be powered by Qwen, Alibaba’s large language model. Alibaba said its glasses will support hands-free calling, music streaming, real-time language translation, and meeting transcription. The glasses also feature a built-in camera. We don’t have other details about this device, but since the launch is expected by the end of 2025, we’ll discover more in the next months.
Rezzil’s Premier League Player is hosting a live VR recreation of the Burnley vs Lazio friendly football match next week on Quest. The match will not be livestreamed as a video, but as a full 3D reconstruction, completed with various statistics about the players and the match. It will be enjoyable live for free on August 9 at 7 am PT.
TOALL launches its Visual-X glasses
Chinese brand TOALL announced its new headset: Visual-X. The headset looks like a smaller version of the Vision Pro, and it features 4.5K display resolution, 203g weight, and 96° FOV (which, weirdly, the company defines as the “golden view angle”). Some early hands-on feedback I got from China is not very positive about it, though.
DJI just launched its first 360° camera
DJI just launched Osmo 360, its first 360° camera. With this move, DJI enters into full competition with Insta360 in the sector of affordable immersive cameras. At the same $550 price as Insta360 X5, DJI Osmo 360 can record 8K at 50fps, 6K at 60fps, or 4K at 100fps, which is more than what the Insta360 X5 can do. It also records 10-bit HDR, compared to 8-bit for Insta360. It will be interesting to see how Insta360 will react to this move.
Immersive events are coming to Teams
After a lot of teasing, Microsoft is finally delivering Immersive Events inside Teams. So, instead of meeting people with a video call, it will now be possible to meet your colleagues in a 3D space as avatars. The good news is that, finally, Microsoft is putting its Mesh technology to good use. The bad news is that meetings will still suck in 3D as they currently suck in 2D.
Some news about content
- Warpfrog, the studio behind Blade & Sorcery, announced they’re working on their next VR title. Details about it are scarce, but the studio said it will be moddable and share a lot of DNA with B&S
- Boxing Underdog (formerly known as VRSO: Bare Knuckle Fighting) has entered early access on Quest, priced at $19.99
- CYBRID is an on-rails sci-fi action game reminiscent of Pistol Whip. It’s now in early access on Steam, and it will launch on Quest on September 5
- VR life simulator sandbox Little Planet is going free-to-play with this year’s full release, following the trend of other VR games
- Cloud Imperium Games could be only a few months away from beginning internal testing of implementing VR into Star Citizen. The fun thing is that they promised this more than 10 years ago, when DK1 was still a thing. Better late than never, I guess
- DISC is a sports game created by studio ‘m ss ng p eces’ in collaboration with Meta and sports brand ASICS. It aims to deliver a free-to-play arcade fitness with a mix of frisbee and air hockey. It is now available on Quest
- Besiege VR is the VR adaptation of the popular war machine sandbox. It is now available on Quest for €18
- Echoes of Mora is a narrative-driven underwater adventure heading to Steam with optional PC VR support. A demo will be available at Gamescom next month
- Classic point-and-click adventure Syberia dropped a new trailer for its upcoming VR edition on Quest 3 and 3S
- Within a month, we should see a new trailer, including some gameplay, for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles VR game
- Touching the Sky is an hour-long 3D 360° experience from Red Bull and Meta. It shows some incredible performances of skydivers using wingsuits. I’ve heard the quality of the shooting is superb
- Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades is going to finally exit Early Access and graduate to version 1.0. This is an incredible milestone for one of the most successful and well-maintained games on PCVR
More info (Warpfrog)
More info (Boxing Underdog)
More info (CYBRID)
More info (Little Planet)
More info (Star Citizen)
More info (DISC)
More info (Besiege VR)
More info (Echoes of Mora)
More info (Syberia)
More info (TMNT)
More info (Touching The Sky)
More info (Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades)
Some reviews about content
- V-Racer Hoverbike delivers a VR racing game that feels fast, tactical, and physically engaging. Its Quest version needs some graphical improvement, though
- Besiege VR is an excellent VR version of the flatscreen game. The porting is so good that the game feels almost like VR native. There are some small hiccups, but they will surely be fixed in some future updates
More info (V-Racer Hoverbike)
More info (Besiege VR)
Other news
The new Boundary System on Quest has some safety issues
Runtime v79 on Quest is going to add some minor improvements
The XR And Metaverse Fair in Tokyo showed the reality of the current troubled moment of XR
First people receiving the Bigscreen Beyond 2 are noticing some issues that were not mentioned in content creators’ reviews
News from partners (and friends)
Support Dunkelstein!
Dunkelstein — An AR Tabletop Murder Mystery is an augmented reality mystery game that unfolds on your table. Discover the mysteries of the haunted villa and unfold the story told by quasi-realistic characters. You can also buy the edition where there is a wooden physical version of the villa to make the blending between the real and the virtual even more intriguing.
The game is currently on Kickstarter, and it has already gone far beyond the initial ask. Support it too, to make it arrive at least at the stretch goal of $58,000!
Discover FM DUO camera!
Meet the FM DUO, a VR camera that is capable of filming up to 12K @30fps, and 8K @60fps. With built-in RTMP live streaming and 5G connectivity, the FM·DUO will immerse your viewers in real time! The FM·DUO features 2 full-frame CMOS sensors, with 6000 x 6000 pixels each. This allows for high-resolution zooming capabilities. Not only can you narrow in on one subject, but you can also focus on singular details of the subject’s facial expressions, clothing textures, and a multitude of other small details, enabling a much more immersive experience of VR video.
Visit Product Website
Some XR fun
Living the dream in VRChat
Funny link
It’s all fun until the kids start screaming
Funny link
We are all in this situation
Funny link
Donate for good
Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate to my blog, but to the poor people who are facing the consequences of the war. Please donate to the Red Cross to handle the current humanitarian situation in Ukraine. I will leave you the link to do that below.
Let me take a moment before to thank anyway all my Patreon donors for the support they give to me:
- Alex Gonzalez VR
- DeoVR
- GenVR
- Eduardo Siman
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And now here you are the link to donate:
Support The Red Cross in Ukraine
(Header image by Meta)
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