Meta VR Glasses can play all of the same games you might on Quest, whether it be through integrated hand-tracking or by pairing optional Touch Plus controllers. But if you’re planning on getting active, Meta says they’ll be selling an accessory for that.
We haven’t seen any images yet, however at Connect 2026 last week the company not only announced Meta VR Glasses, which are coming in Spring 2027 for $1,300, but also the answer to the question of how users will be able to play active VR games.
The solution: a cinching strap that connects the tips of both of the glasses’ temple arms together, more securely fastening it to the user’s head, i.e. not an entirely new strap system like is often the case with Quest.
Courtesy Meta
As it was described to me, it will physically connect to the temple arms, the tips of which actually can be detached for more modularity.
And with a glasses form factor, it needs it. During my hands-on with VR Glasses at Connect, it did feel fairly solid on its own, with no nose-slipping or ear-clipping as some glasses-type headsets are wont to do.
Anything that requires fast head or body movement, or looking down for extended amounts of time though, and you’d probably want a good way of keeping the glasses snug, not only so they don’t fly off your head, but also to keep their relatively narrow sweet spot in place.
Thus far, the only other extras mentioned to me include a light blocker accessory that magnetically attaches to the glasses for greater immersion and prescription lenses from Zenni Optical.
I expect we’ll see those and more accessories closer to its launch next year, and also hopefully learn whether the strap will be a paid add-on, or it will come in the box.
2026 is another big year in VR hardware, but which headset should you consider buying? The old reliable Quest 3? Valve’s Steam Frame? Or maybe you should wait for Meta VR Glasses? Read on to see the specs—and probably more importantly—their use cases compared.
Skip to the conclusion, please.
Here’s the quick and dirty conclusion you can learn more about in the breakdown below:
Steam Frame is for power-users and tinkerers. Despite having Steam at your fingertips, game support is still an ongoing factor.
Quest 3 is for budget-conscious users who value ease of use and a massive game catalogue.
VR Glasses are for productivity-minded users who want private monitors, personal theaters for flatscreen and stereoscopic content, as well as access to regular Quest games.
Steam Frame – Starting at $1,059
Steam Frame is Valve’s second-ever VR headset, one that’s a radically different product from the first, Valve Index.
It’s also one of the first VR headsets we can confidently say combines strong standalone capabilities with an easy-to-use PC streaming experience out of the box. And Valve is leaning pretty hard into its use as a PC streaming headset, which is probably for good reason.
Road to VR
In standalone mode, demanding or poorly optimized games can be basically unplayable, with Valve’s ‘Frame-certified’ program helping consumers to figure out which games actually work well on Frame, both VR and flatscreen games. Critically, Valve didn’t make any big budget games for Frame, although Half-Life: Alyx (2020) did get a standalone mode.
Still, the headset isn’t stopping you from trying anything, which is such a breath of fresh air in comparison to the competition, which largely feature locked-down bootloaders. It’s extremely capable and expandable, but less easy to use than its more console-like competitors, making Steam Frame a great choice for power-users and those willing to tinker with settings to find the optimal experience. As a mixed reality device though, it’s lacking a color passthrough camera, which is a bit of a bummer in 2026 – although you can tack on this upgrade from Arcturus.
As you’d imagine, there’s also a large overlap in base gaming functionality, which could make it hard to justify Frame’s $460 premium ($1,060 total) over Quest 3’s $600 price point. Read our deep dive review of Steam Frame to learn more.
Meta Quest 3 – $600
When Quest 3 was released in October 2023, it wasn’t exactly supposed to be the cheap and cheerful option among the milieu of standalone and PC VR headsets, but rather a cheaper piece of hardware that importantly capitalized on Quest Pro’s failures as a mixed reality platform.
Courtesy Meta
With it, came bigger and more graphically intensive games (and mixed reality modes galore) including Asgard’s Wrath 2 (2023), Arizona Sunshine 2 (2023), and graphical upgrades to favorites such as The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners (2020) and Red Matter 2 (2022). It also signaled a new push by Meta to turn its then flagship VR gaming console into more of a general computing device, largely driven by the entrance of Apple Vision Pro in February 2024.
Still, Quest 3 is a VR gaming headset through and through, which benefits from a massive back catalogue of new and previous Quest titles. It’s also less bulky than its predecessor, Quest 3S, which co-opts Quest 2’s old Fresnel lenses and displays for a cheaper (and visually worse) experience than Quest 3.
Notably, Meta hasn’t said when it will release a Quest 4, so there’s no telling how long Quest 3 will be the target platform for developers creating games to run on Horizon OS, although for a minority of Quest 3 owners, the next step could be VR Glasses…
Meta VR Glasses – $1,300
Meta officially unveiled VR Glasses at Connect 2026 in late September, making for its next big flagship VR device. This time though, the company isn’t really pushing gaming as its big use case when VR Glasses arrive sometime in Spring 2027, but rather productivity and casual content consumption.
Courtesy Meta
Still, it shares Quest’s operating system, Horizon OS, which means it can play the same games and content as Quest 3/3S, albeit at a less immersive 70-degree horizontal field of view (FOV) than Quest 3’s ~110-degree horizontal FOV. It also supports Quest Touch Plus controllers, although its major focus is on hand and eye-tracking, as it doesn’t come with any sort of controller in the box.
And while Meta is trumpeting a lot of the productivity-focused stuff originally released on Quest 3, as the headset features some very compelling passthrough mixed reality, the biggest upgrade is undoubtedly the new form factor. It’s only ~100g of on-head weight, as it offloads both battery and compute to a ~300g pocketable puck tethered to the headset via an optical cable, which terminates in a proprietary port.
So it’s not exactly the upgrade pathway for dyed in the wool Quest fans, as it sacrifices visual immersion for better ergonomics. Now, is that worth the $700 premium over Quest 3? Meta is hoping so. Check out our hands-on with VR Glasses to learn more.
VR Glasses vs. Quest 3 vs. Steam Frame Specs
Spec
Meta VR Glasses
Quest 3
Steam Frame
Retail Price
$1,299
$599 (512 GB)
$1,059 (256 GB) $1,299 (1 TB)
Launch / availability
Spring 2027
Oct. 2023
September 2026
Weight
~100g glasses + ~300g compute puck
515g
435g
Chipset
Snapdragon XR2 Gen 3
Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2
Snapdragon Series 8 Gen 3
RAM
12 GB
8 GB Unified LPDDR5 RAM
16 GB Unified LPDDR5 RAM
Operating System
Horizon OS
Horizon OS
SteamOS
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi 7
WiFi 6E
Wi-Fi 7, 2×2 – Dual 5Ghz/6Ghz
Storage
128 GB
512 GB
256 GB / 1 TB
Expanded Storage
microSD card slot up to 1 TB
N/A
microSD card slot up to 2 TB
Optics
Pancake
Pancake
Pancake
Display
Micro-OLED
LCD
LCD
Per-eye Resolution
2,412 × 2,288
2,064 × 2,208
2,160 × 2,160
Refresh rate
Up to 120 Hz
Up to 120 Hz
72–144 Hz
FOV
70° H × 66° V
110° H × 96° V
Up to 110°
Pixels Per Degree (PPD)
~37
~25
~20-25
Eye tracking
Yes
No
Yes
Hand tracking
Yes
Yes
No
Passthrough
Color
Color
Monochrome
Motion controllers
Touch Plus supported
Touch Plus included
Steam Frame Controllers
PC VR
Wired & wireless
Wired & wireless
Wired & wireless
Battery
~35 Wh, external puck
19.44 Wh, internal
21.6 Wh, rear-mounted
Port
USB-C charging and data, proprietary optical lead to puck
Arcturus Vision Camera is an add-on module for Steam Frame which greatly enhances its passthrough camera quality. The obvious visual improvement, tiny size, and reasonable price make it easy to recommend.
In the course of my decade plus of using VR headsets and various accessories, I can’t think of any that were as straightforwardly recommendable as the Arcturus Vision Camera.
Usually that’s because VR headset accessories (especially those which directly interface with the headset’s software) have at least one major downside. Either they’re too big, too expensive, too niche, or just don’t work as well as you hoped.
The Arcturus Vision Camera is the exception to that trend. It’s not just tiny (a mere 10 grams), reasonably priced ($150), easy to use (plug-and-play), and does what it promises; it also fits Frame so perfectly that you’d swear it was a first-party accessory directly from Valve.
Road to VR
At its core, the Arcturus Vision Camera offers significantly improved passthrough visuals compared to Steam Frame’s default passthrough view, which is otherwise monotone and low resolution.
Captured with Arcturus Vision Camera | courtesy ArcturusCaptured with Steam Frame | courtesy Arcturus
The module snaps into Frame’s hidden expansion port (under the nose bridge) and—without so much as restarting the headset—instantly takes over for the headset’s passthrough cameras. Anywhere that you’d normally see Frame’s own passthrough view (ie: as the background in the SteamVR dashboard or in a mixed reality game), you’ll be looking through the Arcturus Vision module instead.
Road to VR
Beyond just adding color, the jump in resolution is instantly noticeable. It feels like you were sitting in the dark and then someone flipped on the lights.
A key benchmark for any passthrough system is whether or not you can read your phone screen. With Frame’s default passthrough view, there’s no hope.
Road to VR
But the Arcturus module easily crosses the gap to a readable phone.
Road to VR
While the Arcturus Vision Camera is an obvious improvement to Frame’s passthrough, I want to be clear that a large part of the benefit comes from Frame’s default passthrough being so bad to begin with. The Arcturus module brings it up to par, but doesn’t blow contemporary headsets out of the water by any means. Perceptually, it brings Frame’s passthrough view to be about on-par with Quest 3, while both Frame and Quest 3 are still well behind Vision Pro.
If that’s all the camera add-on did, it would be easy to recommend. But Arcturus has also gone the extra mile and made the Vision Camera capable of capturing high-quality spatial videos that can be viewed on Frame or other headsets.
According to Arcturus, the Vision Camera is capable of capturing up to 6MP (2,464 × 2,464), 60 FPS (or 120 FPS at 1.5MP), and 10-bit HDR. It also captures the widest field-of-view of any major headset that allows for spatial video capture. Here’s a sampling of footage captured by the camera:
Courtesy Arcturus
The Arcturus Vision Camera app plays back spatial videos with depth, and with synchronized head movement. That means instead of looking at a video which shakes around inside its frame, the frame itself actually moves in space (according to the motions in the original capture), and the viewer can follow the frame with their own gaze.
And the camera plays nicely with others. Arcturus has made a ‘Sync’ app (currently available for Windows and Mac, with plans for a later Linux release) which lets you transfer recordings from your headset to your computer, and convert them for viewing on other headsets.
Arcturus also advertises the ability to capture 3D gaussian splats using the Vision Camera add-on, but the process currently requires use of command-line tools and a Linux desktop with NVIDIA GPU, so it’s really only something advanced users are likely to play with. However, you can use the company’s free Arcturus Vision Gaussian XR app to see some examples of gaussian splats in the headset.
Even if you have no intention of using mixed reality apps or recording spatial videos, a high-quality passthrough view is a real convenience which makes a headset feel easier to use. While I wish Frame had a good passthrough view out of the box, I’m glad the Arcturus Vision Camera is available to fill the void. Its capabilities, size, and deep integration make it easy to recommend. If you’re already dropping $1,000+ on Steam Frame, do yourself a favor and add the passthrough upgrade.
Meta’s long-promised photorealistic avatars are set to release in the next few months, which the company is calling ‘holograms’. I went hands-on the annual Connect developer conference to see just how Meta plans to take on Apple.
Meta announced it’s finally rolling out its immersive avatars, and they’re coming first to its Meta Ray-Ban Display smart glasses, which includes a single see-through display in the right eye.
I got an opportunity to go hands-on with Holograms on both devices, which proved to be entirely different chatting experiences based on just how different the devices are in the first place.
Note: We have stylized Meta’s holograms with a capital ‘H’ to differentiate its avatars from true holograms.
Creating a ‘Gram
The Hologram creation process… okay. Let’s back up a second. These aren’t holograms by the text book definition, as they aren’t 3D light fields, but rather AI-infused immersive avatars that have more of a 2.5D quality to them. More on that below.
Anyway, the Hologram creation process isn’t the same as creating an Apple Persona, which uses Vision Pro’s built-in depth sensors and RGB camera sensors to scan your face. Instead, you simply use Meta’s iOS or Android mobile app and the phone’s selfie camera as you follow a few on-screen prompts, including improvising an answer to the question “What’s your favorite kind of day?”, reciting a short statement and laughing after it, smiling, and turning your head side to side.
All of that is important since Holograms on Display are driven by voice only, meaning the AI is doing a fair amount of work to make your digital copy act as natural as you’d expect a human to. It’s rolling out first to Display in early access in the coming months, but only in the US for now, and only on WhatsApp video chats.
Holograms on Display
Chatting with another Display-clad user, I noticed fairly quickly my simulacrum wasn’t exactly me. Still, it was close enough that if you didn’t know me, you might actually be fooled.
That said, if you did know me, you’d know I try not to look as consistently annoyed as my avatar does in the video below—I was visibly jetlagged during the capture, and probably feeling a little weird telling a room full of Meta execs my favorite day… which is April 25th by the way, because it’s not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light jacket.
Sofien Bouaziz, Senior Director of Research and Engineering at Meta Reality Labs, had a much more convincing Hologram however, which he admitted took a few tries to get to his liking. His was, without exaggeration, indistinguishable from the very live version of him I saw just moments before he ducked into another room for the call. If I wanted to get mine that good, I was told I could try up to 10 times per day to capture and generate an avatar.
Notably, in the lower left-hand corner of the chat, you’ll see a little ghostly Hologram icon so you know when you’re talking to an avatar or the genuine article.
All told, it’s a flatscreen call experience that I think is more for smartphone users than Display users since the visible display in your right eye is so small. Still, it’s a promising bit of tech to help bridge the odd video chat gap inherent to Display.
Holograms on VR Glasses
Now this is where things get interesting. VR Glasses have both eye and face tracking via the headset’s downward-facing sensors. That last part didn’t make the keynote, but it was confirmed in my Hologram demo.
The result: a very realistic full-bodied avatar, which I was told was generated in a similar way to the smartphone face scan, albeit capturing the user head-to-toe. While not confirmed, I suspect the user will also need to do specific moves to give the AI some gesticulations to mimic, such as a neutral hand position as well as broader, more demonstrative gestures.
When asked whether users would be able to skip the mobile app and use the headset itself (Vision Pro-style) to generate an avatar, I was told the company was sticking with the mobile app since it was less physically awkward.
The avatars I saw at Connect had a distinct 2.5D quality to them. They feature stereoscopy, and feel 3D when looking straight on from a respectable distance, but notably lack any sort of real depth, making them more like some sort of 2D projection than a proper 3D avatar, which you’d expect to be able to walk around the room, fist bump, or hand you a virtual object. These can’t do that.
Still, the AI is doing a fair bit of legwork here to make avatars consistently lifelike. Those hand poses, her hair moving, the flapping of her shirt hem when she shifts from one pose to another is all AI.
It’s still early days, so there’s no telling how things can change between now and VR Glasses’ release next year, although the emphasis on not having fully 3D avatars feels like a conscious decision. It’s fairly clear Meta wants to narratively distance itself from its failed metaverse ambitions by not only offering a grownup VR headset, but also grownup VR avatars to match that will probably be good enough for one-on-one chats.
Now, are Holograms better than Apple’s Personas? It depends on what you mean by better. Personas are still floating heads, albeit very realistic floating heads with actual 3D depth. Vision Pro’s face tracking is also uncannily good.
Putting aside Holograms’ lack of 3D depth, what I saw at Connect admittedly looks very good. Still, I’m curious to see how VR Glasses interpret my own micro-expressions before judging whether its AI model is doing too much in service of simply looking like a person.
Disclosure: Meta provided lodging for one Road to VR reporter to attend Meta Connect 2026 where information for this article was gathered.
At Meta’s annual developer conference today, the company announced its next VR Start Developer Competition, this time slated to award a prize pool of $1 million to spark the community to get cracking on Meta VR Glasses-compatible content.
Meta is hoping to appeal to developers of both new and existing projects across entertainment, gaming, and productivity.
Notably, if developers are submitting games, they’ll be considering submissions in genres that work well for seated play, without controllers, such as puzzle, strategy, casual, social, and narrative experiences.
Courtesy Meta
Games must be “fully usable with hands, end-to-end,” Meta says, noting that Touch controller support is welcome, but not required.
“For a small team without a marketing budget, that visibility drives traffic to your Store listing and gives you something concrete to point to when you pitch a new project or recruit collaborators,” Meta says.
This comes ahead of the company’s Meta VR Glasses announced at Connect this week, which does support Quest’s Touch Plus controllers, but doesn’t ship with them, instead putting its onboard hand and eye-tracking as its preferred control scheme.
The competition takes place from today until November 18th, 2026, and is offering up prizes ranging in value from $20,000 to $100,000 for successful submissions. Winners will be announced on or around December 11th, 2026.
Since Meta VR Glasses run the same operating system as Quest, developers can prototype on Quest 3 in addition to using platform simulators like Meta XR Simulator (Unity | Unreal), Meta Spatial Simulator, and Immersive Web Emulator.
Today at Meta’s annual Connect developer conference the company unveiled its next-gen mixed reality headset: Meta VR Glasses. Coming alongside it early next year is an update to everyone’s favorite block-slashing rhythm game that flips the script for hand-tracking-centric input.
Beat Saber (2019) is getting an update in Spring 2027 on Meta VR Glasses and Meta Quest that finally brings hands-tracking to the game, albeit in an slightly unexpected way.
Called ‘Flux’, the update essentially reimagines the block-slashing action in a new single-player experience that uses your hands as weapons.
Instead of slicking with, well sabers, you wield what Meta calls ‘Flux Powers’, electricity-imbued moves like the ‘Flux Tether’, which channels power between your palms to slice through rod-style notes in time with the beat of its regular slate of pulse-pounding tracks.
Courtesy Meta
You also get punch through note, colored blue, red, or a light purple, the latter of which indicates you need to put both hands together. Destroying notes builds Jolt energy, which essentially gives you an extra score boost. As an OG Beat Saber fan, I immediately clicked into the new control scheme, handily scoring an ‘S’ class on what was probably the easiest setting.
Notably, Flux will also support Touch controllers too when it arrives early next year on Meta VR Glasses and Quest, coming along with 35 songs from the Original Soundtracks, Extras, and Anniversary packs, including tracks from Lindsey Sterling, Teminite, DragonForce, Haywyre, Camellia, Boom Kitty, Jaroslav Beck and Zakka G. Meta says more Flux songs are planned post-launch.
When it arrives, ostensibly alongside Meta VR Glasses next year, there’s also set to be what the company is calling an “enhanced Campaign mode,” which is set to include a “light narrative element” into the experience. The update is also coming with new barriers, missions, in-game rewards, and a new menu system that’s said to more quickly get you into game modes and new content.
Disclosure: Meta provided lodging for one Road to VR reporter to attend Meta Connect 2026 where information for this article was gathered.
Meta’s annual XR and AI focused Connect conference kicks off today. The biggest news is expected in the opening keynote, where the company is expected to reveal its ‘Phoenix’ MR headset and latest smartglasses.
Watch the Meta Connect Keynote on September 23rd at 4PM PT
Meta is playing it close to the vest, teasing the keynote by saying only “join Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg as he shares how Meta is building a future for everyone.”
What’s unclear is if Phoenix will be positioned as ‘Quest 4’, or part of another product line (similar to Quest Pro being distinct from Quest 1, 2, and 3). And if it isn’t the next-gen consumer Quest, will Meta also reveal a new consumer Quest headset? We’ve got boots on the ground at Connect to bring you all the latest news as it happens.
Watch the Meta Connect Developer State of the Union Keynote on September 24th at 10AM PT
On day 2 of Connect, Meta will host its Developer State of the Union keynote which is more focused on developers. We expect to hear the latest on developer tools (especially AI-based tooling), programs, and features to make it easier to build content for Meta’s glasses and headsets. We’ll include the livestream above once it’s available.
Beyond the headlining keynotes, the Connect 2026 agenda includes additional sessions along four tracks: VR, AI glasses, AI, and Horizon. Meta has confirmed all of these sessions will be viewable on-demand online once released.
