VisionOS Update Gives Devs Improved Tools for VR Cloud Streaming

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Apple Vision Pro just got a new update that brings Foveated Streaming to the headset, essentially the same bandwidth-saving feature Valve is bringing to its upcoming Steam Frame headset.

The News

As noted by VR supply chain analyst Brad Lynch, foveated streaming has arrived on Vision Pro via the latest visionOS 26.4 beta update, which landed on February 16th.

Much like Valve’s foveated streaming solution for Steam Frame, Apple’s implementation uses Vision Pro’s eye-tracking to optimize the streamed image to serve up the highest quality at the very center of your view, according to recent Apple developer documentation.

If you have an existing virtual reality game, experience, or application built for desktop computers or a cloud server, you can stream it to Apple Vision Pro with the Foveated Streaming framework.

Foveated Streaming allows your endpoint to stream high quality content only where necessary based on information about the approximate region where the person is looking, ensuring performance.

Additionally, Apple notes that on Vision Pro, foveated streaming allows for a sort of hybrid approach to computing: you can display visionOS spatial content alongside streaming content, such as a flight simulator rendering a cockpit using RealityKit while processor-intensive landscapes are streamed from a remote computer to the device.

The key difference is the focus and implementation. Valve seems to be applying Foveated Rendering globally, meaning all Steam apps will benefit out of the box. Valve’s focus is also on local PC streaming, which is done via a direct Wi-Fi 6E connection.

Instead, Vision Pro apps and games need to be specifically integrated with Apple’s version of the technology, with Apple additionally supporting NVIDIA’s CloudXR SDK, which allows developers of existing VR apps created for desktop computers as well as cloud servers to stream to Vision Pro.

My Take

On the face of it, it looks like Apple is matching Valve punch-for-punch with foveated streaming, although I wouldn’t take this as Apple meaningfully looking to compete with the upcoming Steam Frame on the consumer end of things.

The $3,500 Vision Pro M5 refresh likely won’t come down in price anytime soon, and I don’t suspect Apple is trying to get a bunch of PC VR developers onboard to create consumer-facing versions of their apps that will need to be specifically integrated with Vision Pro foveated streaming.

If I were an enterprise user though, I would may be pretty interested in the new update, as this opens up one of the key features Steam Frame is bringing to the table.

Being able to push more compute-intensive apps to a headset they likely already own could stop some companies from justifying a Steam Frame(s) purchase, which Apple is all too happy to oblige—especially as the recent memory and storage crisis has seen components shoot up in price so dramatically, causing Valve to take reassess pricing and release date of Steam Frame.

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SlimeVR Launches Crowdfunding Campaign for Thinner & Lighter Full-Body Trackers

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SlimeVR has launched its next crowdfunding campaign, this time looking to get backers excited about its next-gen ‘Butterfly’ body trackers, which promise to be thinner, lighter, and offer a longer-lasting battery.

SlimeVR’s crowdfunding campaign for the new Butterfly Trackers quickly crossed its $180,000 funding goal when it went live on February 9th, now sitting at over $347,000 from nearly 760 backers.

Much like the original SlimeVR Full-Body Tracker, which attracted more than $9 million in 2021, the IMU-based body tracking solution lets VR users better articulate their avatars without the need of base stations or external sensors of any type. It’s also handy for things like motion capture and VTubing.

Image courtesy SlimeVR

That said, Butterfly Trackers are built using the same tracking technology and the ICM-45686 IMU chip by TDK as the original, something SlimeVR notes also includes the same long drift reset times and tracking quality.

The key innovation however is the inclusion of a custom 2.4 GHz dongle instead of Wi-Fi, which essentially allows the trackers to be smaller, lighter, and have a longer battery life. SlimeVR estimates each tracker can last up to 48 hours on a single charge, which is more than double its original Full-Body Trackers.

And because they’re so thin and light, this also includes a few new methods of attachment, including directly via straps, clips, and even iron-on patches.

Image courtesy SlimeVR

Notably, all SlimeVR trackers are compatible with standalone headsets, including Meta Quest, Pico, or Steam Frame, as well as any headset that uses SteamVR.

The campaign’s lowest backer tier is the ‘Core Set Bundle’, which includes six Butterfly Trackers for $279, which are estimated to ship by Aug 31st, 2026. SlimeVR says the six-unit bundle is enough to track the position and rotation of your hip, knees, and chest, as well as the position (re: not rotation) of your feet.

You can check out the full specs list and additional funding tiers over on the SlimeVR Butterfly Tracker Crowd Supply campaign, which ends March 19th.

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‘VRChat’ Breaks All-Time Concurrent User Record with Japanese Anime Concert

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VRChat announced it just topped its all-time user peak, bringing in over 150,000 concurrent users to attend a Japanese language concert.

VRChat Community Head ‘Tupper’ confirmed on X that the social VR platform hit a new all-time high of 156,716 concurrent users over the weekend.

The platform played host to Sanrio Virtual Festival, a music and anime culture festival taking place from February 8th to March 8th, although it was the main act that drew in glut of the fans though—a musical performance by Kaguya, the main character from Netflix anime series Cosmic Princess Kaguya! 

You can check out a clip of the concert below, courtesy YouTuber ‘Koge’s Game Streaming Channel’ (こげのゲーム配信ちゃんねる):

If you want to catch the act ‘live’ in VRChat, you’ll have three more occasions. Bookmark this link when it’s time:

• Sunday, March 1st 18:00 [JST]
• March 7th (Sat) 12:00 [JST]
• Sunday, March 8th 12:00 [JST]

Notably, the month-long festival will include performances from a host of VTubers and musical groups, and also includes a virtual theme park featuring Sanrio characters such as Hello Kitty.

This follows VRChat’s most recent record-breaking event, which took place during the recent New Year’s Eve celebration. Then, the platform welcomed in a peak of 148,886 concurrent users during the Central Time Zone ball drop.

While we don’t know the specific numbers for how the Japan time zone fared during the NYE ball drop, at the time Tupper said Japan-based users had “a strong showing,” noting the number “did surprise me.”

VRChat has long been a popular platform in Japan, however lately it seems to have broken through to mainstream Japanese culture. In June 2025, McDonald’s Japan opened an official VRChat world, which came as part of a larger marketing campaign involving popular VTubers.

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Vision Pro Finally Gets Native ‘YouTube’ App with Full Immersive Video Library

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Vision Pro users have been waiting over two years for a native YouTube app. Now, it’s finally here—thankfully also including support for immersive videos.

The News

Google first announced that a YouTube app was “on the road map” shortly after Vision Pro’s February 2024 launch, although it never gave a specific release window, leaving users searching for alternatives beyond simply opening YouTube in Safari, which notably didn’t include native support for spatial video.

The official YouTube app, which is now available on the App Store, now gives Vision Pro users access to every YouTube video and Short, which includes access to all of the regular YouTube features, such as subscriptions, playlists, and watch history.

Image courtesy Apple, Google

What’s more, the official YouTube app also comes with support for viewing spatial videos, which including all 3D, VR180, and 360 videos on the platform. Vision Pro users can find them by navigating to the app’s dedicated ‘Spatial’ tab.

Additionally, Google maintains YouTube for Vision Pro also includes video playback up to 8K for the M5 version, which was released last October.

My Take

There’s no official explanation out there (yet), although there are probably a few reasons why YouTube didn’t come to Vision Pro up until now.

The most obvious to me: Apple’s $3,500 XR headset likely presented a limited return on investment for Google, which may or may not have been influenced by the companies’ historical platform rivalry. Notably, there is still no Gmail, Chrome, Docs, Drive, Photos, Maps—no Google-owned app on Vision Pro except YouTube right now.

That said, YouTube did make a spatial version of its app for Android XR, which was released with Samsung Galaxy XR last October. The relative timing makes me think the release on Vision Pro was more of a knock-on effect of having already built than leadership at YouTube specifically determining that now would finally be profitable, as I don’t suspect the M5 hardware refresh has significantly driven additional consumer interest.

Whatever the case, YouTube has now found itself on the hook for maintaining the app across three distinct XR platforms: Android XR, visionOS and Horizon OS.

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Meta Sold Over 7 Million Smart Glasses Last Year, Effectively Tripling Sales in 2025 Alone

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EssilorLuxottica reported its Q4 2025 financial results, revealing the company sold over seven million smart glasses last year.

The French-Italian eyewear conglomerate has been making smart glasses in partnership with Meta since the launch of the original Ray-Ban Stories in 2021.

Now, in its fourth-quarter results, EssilorLuxottica revealed it sold over seven million smart glasses last year—more than tripling sales since last reported.

In February 2025, the company announced it had sold two million Ray-Ban (Gen 1) smart glasses since release in late 2023.

Image courtesy Brad Lynch

It’s no wonder 2025 was a landmark year for the company though. Alongside Meta, EssilorLuxottica not only released a hardware refresh of its popular Ray-Ban Meta glasses, but also Oakley Meta HSTN, Oakley Meta Vanguard, and the $800 Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses—the company’s first smart glasses to include a heads-up display.

In addition to its smart glasses efforts, EssilorLuxottica maintains that 2025 marked a further acceleration in its “evolution from an optical company into a leading medtech and big-data group,” owing to growth across both its Nuance Audio hearing-aid glasses and AI-driven healthcare platform.

While Meta and EssilorLuxottica are current market leaders in smart glasses, the XR wearables race has really only just begun. As it appears today, companies largely see smart glasses as a first step towards creating all-day AR glasses of the near future, with  potential contenders including Google, Samsung and reportedly also Apple.

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‘Battlefield’-like VR Shooter ‘Forefront’ is Coming to PSVR 2 with Cross-Play

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Triangle Factory announced that its Battlefield-inspired VR shooter Forefront is finally coming to PSVR 2.

There’s no release date yet beyond the studio’s initial announcement, however Triangle Factory has confirmed that when it does, the 32-player shooter will “support cross play with other VR platforms.”

Created by the same studio behind Breachers (2023) and Hyper Dash (2021), Forefront serves up an experience that should be pretty familiar to fans of the Battlefield series.

Boasting an expansive, semi-destructible environments, 16v16 battles include the ability to pilot everything from helicopters, tanks, humvees and boats as you push objectives.

Currently, Forefront is available in early access across all other major VR headsets, including Quest, SteamVR, and Pico headsets. And it’s done very well for itself in the last three months since it launched into early access.

We’ll be keeping an eye out for official release dates, but in the meantime you can wishlist Forefront over on the PlayStation Store for PSVR 2.

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‘Star Citizen’ VR Support Isn’t Prime Time Yet, But It’s Getting There

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Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) added experimental PC VR support to Star Citizen late last year, taking a first step in fulfilling a more than decade-old promise. Things are getting increasingly serious though after the release of its second post-VR update.

Update Alpha 4.5 initially brought a VR theater and full VR mode to the game in December, which lets users play the bulk of the game in PC VR headsets for the first time, including walking, flying, EVA, combat, and using menus.

Granted, it’s still a (very) experimental mode, which initially required some users to even add VR config lines to the game’s directory to get it working, done in addition to keeping track of keybinds to cycle through VR modes on the fly.

Now the studio has released Star Citizen 4.6, adding for the first time an official VR option in the settings menu, making managing and enabling VR mode at startup a much easier affair.

Image courtesy Ray’s Guide

Although 4.6 doesn’t radically expand VR features, it’s certainly a vote of confidence that VR support is not only still on track, but moving closer to the core of the game. Still, it’s polished a number of usability issues, such as better menus and a smoother overall experience.

That said, as mentioned in a recent ‘Ray’s Guide’ video, players still need to carefully tune OpenXR settings, upscaling options, and in-game VR stuff, such as UI scale, distance, and IPD alignment just to get comfortable results. Users also typically need to switch between full VR and theater mode constantly for inventory and kiosk interactions, which is a definite immersion breaker.

That, and it doesn’t include VR motion controller support yet, making control remapping almost mandatory at this point, with many users relying on a mix of controllers, keyboards, HOTAS, and voice command software to manage the game’s enormous number of bindings.

As Silvan-CIG says in the 4.5 update announce in December though, all of its done in the spirit of open development.

“This is not our full VR launch. When that day arrives, we will make plenty of noise about it. What we are rolling out today is an opportunity for some early hands-on time, very much in the spirit of Open Development, so you can jump in, see how things are shaping up, and help guide what comes next.”

That said, creating a VR-native out of a Star Citizen is a tall order. Looking ahead, CIG’s biggest challenges will probably be centered around balancing those ambitions with the rest of the game’s development, which is constantly growing in scope and graphical complexity.

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