Pushing the boundaries of standalone XR headsets ultimately boils down to lightening the load and boosting performance. While Meta recently showcased its Orion AR glasses with a wireless compute unit, Andrew Bosworth, the company’s CTO, believes that this approach isn’t the ultimate solution for standalone VR gaming.
Bosworth, who also leads Meta’s Reality Labs XR team, regularly engages with followers through Q&A sessions on Instagram, offering insights into various topics ranging from the professional to the personal. In a recent discussion, he explored the concept of wireless compute units and why Meta feels they don’t quite fit their vision for standalone VR headsets.
He explained, “We’ve considered this numerous times. Wireless compute pucks don’t really address the core issue. Even though they’re wireless, a battery still needs to be on the headset, adding to its weight—a significant factor. Sure, you gain some thermal space, potentially enhancing performance, but there’s a catch; you’re constrained by bandwidth since it relies on a radio connection.”
Meta’s primary goal is to craft consumer-friendly devices, such as their latest Quest 3S, priced from $300 for the 128GB model. Bosworth further noted, “The costs escalate quickly. Even if your main processor resides in a wireless compute puck, you still require substantial processing power to manage the displays and local corrections and to handle the incoming data stream. So ultimately, as I see it, the numbers don’t add up. The anticipated weight savings are minimal, while costs and complexity rise significantly.”
Interestingly, this contrasts with Meta’s Orion prototype, which utilizes a wireless compute unit. Yet, Orion remains impractical for the market, primarily due to its whopping production costs—around $10,000 per unit, thanks to the sophisticated and expensive silicon carbide lenses. In this scenario, wireless pucks could serve a purpose, particularly in supporting less immersive graphics for AR glasses.
However, Bosworth has pointed out that Meta’s first consumer AR glasses won’t be priced as affordably as the Quest series when they eventually come to market. In September, he alluded to their price range, suggesting that they will be “not cheap,” but within the realm of standard tech costs, akin to phones or laptops.
