Meta Quest 3 News & Reviews

Meta has now released details of its upcoming Connect developer conference, which takes place September 17th – 18th. Following its success with Ray-Ban Meta, the company appears to again be putting smart glasses front and center this year.

The company has released brief descriptions of a few sessions, including the September 17th keynote featuring Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, as well as the September 18th developer keynote, and a conversation on “the future of computing.”

Undoubtedly, the mention of its smart glasses (which Meta ‘AI glasses’) are high on the list, and it may be for good reason.

According to previous reports from a number of outlets and supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Meta is preparing a new pair of smart glasses with a display, codenamed ‘Hypernova’, which are expected to cost around $800.

Notably, a rash of leaks provided by data miner ‘Luna’ starting in late June seem to show the glasses in full (seen above), suggesting that Hypernova (aka ‘Celeste’) could be a solo project not marketed in conjunction with Ray-Ban and Oakley maker EssilorLuxottica.

They’re also said to include a single monocular heads-up display and a wrist-worn electromyography (EMG) based controller for input. As you’d expect, the information contained in these reports have not been confirmed by Meta, so we’ll just have to tune in and see for ourselves.

Still, something is coming, and a new pair of smart glasses is a good bet. As covered by UploadVR in early August, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth noted that Connect 2025 will include a “big wearables announcement”.

Sessions will also (of course) feature the company’s progress on AI and well as its metaverse ambitions with social VR platform Horizon Worlds. You can check out the times and descriptions below:

Connect Keynote

• Wednesday, September 17 at 5:00 pm PST (local time)
• Join Mark Zuckerberg as he shares the latest on AI glasses and lays out Meta’s vision for artificial intelligence and the metaverse.

Developer Keynote

• Thursday, September 18 at 10:00 am PST (local time)
• Hear from executives across Meta on how our latest technologies are creating opportunities for developers to build new experiences for people. 

Spotlight conversation: the future of computing

• Thursday, September 18 at 10:45 am PST (local time)
• As Meta announces its latest line of new products and updates that takes the next steps on the journey to the next computing platform, we look even further into the future. Join visionaries Michael Abrash and Richard Newcombe as they reveal the exciting future of glasses with contextual AI, and how Meta is poised to transform the future of computing.

There are also a number of developer talks on the books, which Meta appears to still be filling out as we approach kickoff. You can check out all of the above on the Meta Connect website.

Red Bull and Jonathan Griffith Productions have released Touching the Sky on Quest, now letting you follow wingsuit base jumpers in the European Alps and a paragliding team across the Himalayas in Pakistan in an hour-long immersive documentary.

Captured using custom-built 3D, 360 cameras, the documentary lets you accompany wingsuit and base jump athletes Fred Fugen and Vincent Cotte, who take you on two wingsuit flights in the Italian Dolomites.

“The biggest challenge was in freefall, to fly with such a camera,” Fugen explains in a Red Bull blog post. “It took a lot of work to collaborate with the drone pilots who were in the helicopter. You had to adapt and synchronise together to do the jumps and freefalls. We didn’t have much training together [beforehand], so combining our skillsets was challenging.”

The documentary also features Aaron Durogati and his partner Matthias Weger as they paraglide across the Pakistani Himalayas, who aimed to get as high and deep in to the highest mountains on the planet.

“Flying in Pakistan is quite extreme because the mountains are huge and take expert technique to manage,” explains Durogati. “The thermal flows are unique to those in the Alps. If something happened there, you’re by yourself, and it’s unlikely that rescue helicopters can come to pick you up. In the Alps, you can almost always count on a rescue.”

You can watch the hour-along documentary for free over on Meta Quest TV, exclusively for Quest 2 and above.

If you’re interested in how it was all recorded, Red Bull has published a thirty-minute behind-the-scenes video, capturing the raw experience of what it takes to document such an amazing feat.

Meta is giving its Avatars another big upgrade, offering users finer control over things like face shape, body part sizes, hair, makeup and more.

Avatars are integrated across the gamut of Meta’s platforms, including Horizon Worlds, Home and Workrooms on Quest and mobile, and across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

Now, users in the US and Canada can choose from dozens of new body types and customizable features, including things like shoulders, hips, and biceps. A new body preview mode is also there, letting users adjust their frame before customizing with outfits.

Notably, the Avatar face editor is also getting a boost, with new parametric controls for customizing things like jawlines, cheek fullness, and facial depth. Additionally, Meta says it’s added 18 standing poses, over 50 new emotes, and dozens of new clothing options tailored to fit all body types.

And to style your avatar, a new AI-powered style tool is launching too, which lets Horizon mobile app users generate new outfit ideas via text prompt or randomization, allowing users to then manually fine tune those creations.

Meta says it’s initially releasing the new avatar system to 13+ users in the US and Canada, noting that it’s rolling out the update gradually, which also means there should be more styles and features added over time.

Spotify finally has its own Quest web app, letting you listen to music in the background as you go about your virtual ways.

The new Spotify app for Quest isn’t an app in the traditional sense, but rather a progressive web app (PWA) that essentially opens up its own browser window.

While that means you can’t use Spotify offline, like you might on Android or iOS, it does mean you can bypass the old song and dance of having to open the browser and go to Spotify web manually.

It also means you can enjoy all of the same music and podcasts however you like, be it minimized for background play, or maximized so you can watch video podcasts, check out track lyrics, browse artists, and manage your playlists.

And as you’d imagine, the Spotify web app for Quest is free, supporting both free and paid subscriptions. You can find Spotify for Quest over on the Horizon Store, supporting Quest 2 and above.

Meta announced it’s now added an official Zoom app to the Horizon Store, letting you host and join online meetings as your Quest avatar.

This isn’t the first time Quest users could jump into a Zoom call in VR. In 2021, the company integrated Zoom into Horizon Workrooms, its all-in-one immersive collaboration app. That was more focused on face-to-face VR meetings though, which could also allow you to include webcam participants into a single immersive space.

Now, users just looking for Zoom and nothing else can download the standalone app for free, which Meta calls a “seamless extension of the Zoom Workplace app you’ve already been using on your mobile or desktop.”

The new Zoom app lets you participate in meetings as your Horizon Worlds avatar, although not within an immersive environment like Horizon Workrooms. Zoom for Quest essentially projects a 2D video of your avatar to anyone, be it a fellow VR user or a person using a standard webcam.

The question remains whether you’d actually want to join meetings using your Meta avatar. While greatly improved over the years, they’re still just as cartoony as ever—especially in comparison to Apple’s latest Persona avatars coming to Vision OS 26. Notably, Vision Pro has had its own Persona-capable Zoom app since the headset’s initial February 2024 launch.

That said, it’s difficult to argue with free. To start using Zoom on Quest, simply download the Zoom Workplace app from the Horizon Store, and login with the same profile you use on mobile or desktop to get chatting.

Jim Henson’s Muppets could be coming to VR following talks with Disney—possibly offering a clue at the sort of content Meta reportedly hopes to bring to its next VR headset.

Disney held an event on June 14th celebrating the 70th anniversary of The Jim Henson Company. The event was also a bittersweet sendoff for one of Disney’s Hollywood Studios most famous long-running attractions, Muppet* Vision 3D.

As reported by Disney fan site Laughing Place, The Jim Henson Company CEO Lisa Henson announced at the event that, while Disney closed the physical attraction a few days prior, the company was now “exploring ways to preserve the film and other parts of the experience for fans to enjoy in the future.”

This, Henson said, included discussions with Disney about bringing the attraction-based film to VR, with Laughing Company reporting that the Muppet* Vision 3D was captured using VR cameras.

This follows a Wall Street Journal report from earlier this month alleging that Meta is currently shopping for branded immersive content from companies such as Disney, A24, and smaller production studios.

The WSJ report maintains Meta is hoping to sign timed-exclusive episodic and standalone immersive video content geared towards its next VR headset.

Codenamed ‘Loma,’ the reported device is said to feature a design similar to a pair of eyeglasses that connects to a tethered puck, which is described as having greater compute power than its Quest 3 series of headsets, and a price of “less than $1,000.”

Meta announced it’s now running a test in Quest’s latest Horizon OS release (v77) that overhauls the platform’s dock-based UI for a new launcher overlay. Additionally, Meta says some users will also see 3D Instagram photos in their feed on Quest too, which is neat.

First teased at Connect 2024, Meta is finally bringing Navigator to Quest, which serves as a new centralized hub for apps, quick actions, and system functions.

“As part of our work to develop a fully spatial operating system designed around people, Navigator gives you convenient access to your recently used applications, with the added ability to pin up to 10 items in your library for quick access and seamless task resumption. This makes it easier to multitask in-headset and connect with the people and things you care about most,” Meta says in the v77 patch notes.

Essentially, Navigator is supposed to make it easier to access system-level controls and then quickly return to what you were doing in-headset. More specifically, the new UI should feel pretty familiar to smartphone users thanks to its more traditional layout.

YouTuber ‘The Construct’ shows off Navigator, including a tutorial video and hands-on impressions:

“We designed Navigator based on everything we’ve learned over the last decade. It’s unobtrusive, intuitive, and built from the ground up for the unique needs of spatial computing,” Meta says.

The company says Navigator will begin rolling out as a limited test to some people on the Public Test Channel (PTC) v77, which is expected to roll out gradually to all users over the coming months.

Additionally, Instagram is getting a little love on Quest too, as Meta says it’s currently testing 3D-ified photos on the platform. For some users on PTC v77, Meta’s AI will automatically transform existing 2D photos not originally captured in 3D into an immersive format.

“And it’s an early look at our plans to continue bringing more social and entertainment experiences that are 2D today into a more immersive, 3D future,” Meta says.

Note: To enroll in Quest’s Public Test Channel (PTC), you need to use the Meta Horizon app on your phone and navigate to the ‘Devices’ section. Select your Quest headset and then go to ‘Headset settings’ and then ‘Advanced Settings’. Finally, toggle on ‘Public Test Channel’.

Metanaut, the studio behind Rube Goldberg-inspired physics sandbox Gadgeteer (2019), announced they’re releasing an anthology of virtual and mixed reality experiences designed to mesmerize.

Called Wonder, the experience is slated to land on Quest 3/S within the “next couple of months,” aiming to deliver what Metanaut calls a “perfect escape” from your busy life.

Initially announced back in late 2021, Wonder is set to feature three experiences when it launches this Spring, with more coming post-launch:

• Ancient Ruins: your familiar space morphs into a mysterious cave that gets swallowed up by a blackhole.
• Jellyfish Bloom: a mesmerizing deep-sea spectacle filled with bioluminescent jellyfish that lights up your walls and furniture.
• Parallel Worlds: where reality-bending portals reveal alternate versions of your environment in ice, dots, and more.

Metanaut says Wonder is being developed with “clever and advanced rendering techniques” that is pushing Quest 3 to deliver photorealistic visuals thanks to the inclusion of scanned room meshes. It’s also a hand tracking-only title, letting you put down your controllers.

“This technical achievement is paired with custom-crafted, beautiful audio from award-winning music studio, Ictus Audio, whose accolades include winning the John Lennon Songwriting Award,” the studio says.

“The XR industry seems to have shifted from serving adults to kids, and from high-quality premium titles to free-to-play slop,” says Peter Kao, founder of Metanaut. “With Wonder, we wanted to create a magical experience for an underserved audience—one who is older and one who wants to experience the highest audiovisual spectacle possible on latest headsets.”

Wonder is now available for pre-order for $4, and is expected to increase in price as more content is released after launch. You can pre-order it here exclusively for Quest 3 and Quest 3S.