Project Cambria Hands On: Take a First Look at the Meta Quest Pro VR Headset

The Meta Quest 2 (formerly the Oculus Quest 2) has been my favorite virtual reality headset for a few years because it offers a fully realized VR experience without any cables. Standalone VR has impressed me so much that I generally recommend it over any tethered VR setup except for enthusiast gamers with high-end PCs. Moreover, few other companies even make standalone consumer headsets, so I was excited when I first heard rumors about Meta’s latest VR project.

Meta invited me to its offices in New York City to try out its new hardware that comes out later this month. It’s called the Meta Quest Pro (previously referred to as Project Cambria) and it’s much more advanced than the Quest 2. If the Pro in its name isn’t enough of a hint, its $1,499.99 price should let you know that this is an enterprise-level VR headset and not one for the average consumer. So while you probably won’t be buying one for yourself, it’s still interesting to use it as a barometer for what we might see from more affordable standalone VR in the future.

(Credit: Meta)

The Quest Pro is sleek, black, and looks much more professional than the Quest 2 and its friendly, matte white curves. The front of the headset is a glossy black plastic shield with three visible cameras that enable an improved pass-through view. Instead of a three-point strap like you get with the Quest 2, the Quest Pro has a horizontal strap similar to the company’s optional Elite Strap, with generous curved padding for both the front and back of your head. The back part of the strap also holds the headset’s battery, which improves the overall balance and feel.

It felt fairly comfortable on my head, though I can’t attest to how it might feel after a few hours of use. Battery life for the headset is between just one and two hours, so comfort over an extended period might be a nonissue.

(Credit: Meta)

The new controllers look and feel a bit simpler, but they’re much more technically impressive. They have the same control layout, but Meta has removed the rings of the Oculus Touch controllers, which enabled previous headsets to track them.

Now, each controller has cameras that enable positional tracking regardless of its relative position to the headset. The controllers also offer better grip sensitivity and finger tracking (though not to the extent of the Valve Index’s individual finger tracking). Meta has improved haptic feedback, too. The new controllers provide a sense of texture in a similar way to the rumble you get with the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Cons and the PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller.

Internally, the Meta Quest Pro runs on the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 1 platform, which Meta says is 50% more powerful than the Snapdragon XR2 processor in the Meta Quest 2. It should be able to handle higher resolutions and better graphical effects, as well as offer better spatial tracking.

The Meta Quest Pro’s display doesn’t surpass the Quest 2’s resolution, but it’s still more advanced. The headset uses two LCDs that each show 1,920 by 1,800 pixels per eye, in line with the Quest 2. However, these panels feature a local-dimming backlight system that can individually brighten and dim 500 separate LED sections to improve contrast (75% more than the Quest 2, according to Meta). Meta also claims a 25% boost in full-field visual sharpness in the center view and 50% in the periphery, with a 130% improvement in color gamut. The refresh rate is surprisingly lower, however, topping out at 90Hz compared with the 120Hz of the Quest 2.

(Credit: Meta)

In addition to VR graphics, the Quest Pro presents a better view of your real-world surroundings. The outward-facing cameras now show color, a welcome upgrade over the monochrome view from the Quest 2. Everything still looks fairly grainy, but it’s also an accurate visual pass-through, so it’s as if you’re looking out through your own eyes—just with a digital filter over them.

The most interesting part of the Quest Pro isn’t what you can see, though, but rather how the headset sees you. It features both eye and face tracking, which means it can capture both your expression and where you’re looking. In a virtual meeting, for instance, your avatar shows your facial expression and matches your mouth movements when you talk. It’s like a VTuber’s rig, only in virtual reality. Eye tracking also enables foveated rendering: This improves performance by letting the headset show more detail where you’re looking and less detail in your peripheral vision.

I tried several mixed reality experiences with the Quest Pro, both full VR and AR. Tribe XR is a VR experience that simulates professional Pioneer DJ equipment and enables remote classes and coaching from experts. Figmin XR is a 3D creation tool that combines virtual painting with physics. Meta Horizon Workrooms is Meta’s virtual collaboration platform and is currently in beta.

Tribe XR

Tribe XR tutorial mode
(Credit: Meta)

DJing has always fascinated me, but my electronic control panel expertise stops short of anything involving rhythm or melody. Tribe XR walks you through a gamified tutorial that explains the main functions of the virtual decks and how a DJ uses them to mix tracks with different effects. The tutorial feels like a simpler version of DJ Hero (or Bemani, if you prefer), but on a much more complicated and virtual control system. It directed me to reach out and turn knobs in time with visual prompts, methodically going through various knobs and switches.

What makes Tribe XR seem especially impressive, however, is what people with DJ skills can do with this software. It generates a virtual reproduction of a full DJ setup with Pioneer CDJ-3000 decks and a DJM-900 NXS2 mixer, all of which appear to function realistically. Dozens of knobs to tweak, two turntables to spin, and multiple effects to layer between tracks are all at your virtual fingertips. And, on the Meta Quest Pro, you can still fully see your surroundings in color with the rig anchored in front of you.

Figmin XR

Figmin XR shows off the comprehensiveness of the Meta Quest Pro’s augmented reality support. It’s a Tilt Brush-powered sandbox where you can create or import both 2D and 3D content, including premade models, Tilt Brush sketches, and voxel objects. The color cameras of the Quest Pro again add to the experience, because Figmin XR can work in a full augmented reality environment based on your surroundings. Not only could I see the conference room where I was walked through the demo, but the walls and table had a virtual presence complete with physics effects. It’s immersive and not disorienting.

Figmin XR marble slide
(Credit: Meta)

Speaking of physics, each object in Figmin XR can have 3D physical properties, an aspect that makes it particularly intriguing. The developers walked me through a few demos, including a 3D marble slide with dozens of components on the table in front of me. I held a virtual cup full of marbles (that made the controller vibrate carefully, giving the impression of individual small objects rattling in my hand), then poured them into the top of the slide. They collided with the different parts of the track and behaved realistically, rolling along until they reached another track near the bottom with separate physical properties that accelerated them against gravity and shot them up to the top of the slide. Another demo projected a miniature golf course on the floor and turned my controller into a putter. The ball seemed to behave accurately, but without any weight in my hand beside the controller, I kept accidentally swinging too hard and sending the ball off the course.

Figmin XR Minigolf
(Credit: Meta)

Figmin XR feels very much like an elaborate tech demo, but it’s one that potentially anyone can play with because it’s available on the Quest 2 and even the original Quest. The color graphics and more advanced location mapping probably give the Quest Pro a distinct edge for this experience, however. It wasn’t at all disorienting with the Quest Pro headset in my hands-on time, but I’m not sure the same would be true of the other two headsets.

Finally, I got to try out Meta Horizon Workrooms, the most work-focused of the experiences. Meta’s mixed reality collaboration and workspace platform provides virtual environments where multiple users can communicate and work remotely with each other. It generates a virtual office or conference room in the headset with familiar, easily recognizable elements like desks, conference tables, whiteboards, and even lecterns for moderating discussions.

Meta Horizon Workrooms (a mock-up screenshot, not part of my experience)
(Credit: Meta)

First, I tried a fairly large workspace with a table in front of me. A laptop on the table matched a computer in the real world that was paired wirelessly to the headset. I put down the controllers and was able to use the Quest Pro’s hand-tracking feature (which the Quest 2 also has) for input. I had no issues manipulating a virtual screen in front of me or expanding the computer’s display to three large virtual windows with gestures. I didn’t have a problem using my hand as a mouse or even typing on the physical computer’s keyboard because of the automatic pass-through view.

Although everything worked very well, I still found the view of my hands while typing a bit disturbing. My virtual avatar’s simulated hands were smaller than mine in reality and the color balance was a bit off because of the cool office lighting. Whenever I typed, it looked like I was controlling big, slightly purple monster hands.

The other major function of Meta Horizon Workrooms is collaborative rooms. I joined a virtual conference with a Meta representative who also had a Quest Pro. We sat at a large table similar to the one in the physical room, but at a different angle. The software defined our seats at the virtual table rather than our physical positions, but we could move to different chairs at the table without physically getting up via pop-up options. The seating locations affected how we sounded to each other because of the headset’s spatial audio—when he sat in front of me, he sounded like he was in front, and when he sat to my left, he sounded like he was to my left. When he reconfigured the room into a breakout session with multiple smaller tables and changed locations, he sounded distant. This audio component gives a sense of realism to the experience.

Another mock-up screenshot, but this is how the avatars appear
(Credit: Meta)

The Quest Pro’s eye and face tracking features made the experience even more lifelike. Our avatars were simple 3D characters similar to Nintendo Miis, but the Quest Pro tracked our eyes and mouths as we spoke. The eye tracking was accurate enough that I could make virtual eye contact with the representative, something I hadn’t experienced in VR before. The headset also watched our mouths and made the avatars speak as we spoke, replicating expressions like smiles and frowns, as well as more realistically conveying speech than simple, puppet-like, audio-based mouth animations ever could. It was a remarkable experience and, for someone who finds eye contact difficult, slightly unnerving. With the Quest Pro, anyone you’re talking to knows what you’re looking at and your level of engagement. On the bright side, if you don’t have a headset, you can join a virtual workspace as a floating window, with or without video.

Like the other two experiences, Meta Horizon Workrooms also works with the Quest 2. The Quest Pro’s additional features really give it the edge for collaboration, though.

An Impressive Headset Mostly for Pros

From my brief time with it, I can already say that the Meta Quest Pro is an incredible piece of kit and easily the most impressive standalone VR headset I’ve seen yet. The standalone part is important, because I consider this far superior to tethered systems for ease of use.

It’s quite expensive though—costing as much as one and a half Valve Index units. That puts the Quest Pro squarely in the enterprise zone, unless you’re such a VR enthusiast that you have no problem with paying the price of nearly four Quest 2 headsets to get a faster processor, color cameras, and eye and face tracking.

I plan to take a closer look at the Quest Pro when I can get one into the lab for testing, so make sure to check back for a full review. But if you can’t wait, the headset is available for preorder now and should ship on Oct. 25.