{"id":448464,"date":"2025-09-24T17:49:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T17:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/448464\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T17:49:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T17:49:11","slug":"vr-headsets-are-better-than-ever-and-no-one-seems-to-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/448464\/","title":{"rendered":"VR Headsets Are Better Than Ever and No One Seems to Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

If mixed reality and virtual reality are still a big thing, you wouldn\u2019t know it based on Meta\u2019s Connect conference<\/a> last week. There were no big Quest announcements (outside of maybe Hyperscape), no new Quest headset, and it felt like the only time Meta (traditionally the loudest and proudest purveyor of XR out there) really tackled XR and VR was through a surprise, and slightly out of place, fireside chat with\u2026 Avatar director, James Cameron.<\/p>\n

That would make sense if XR and VR headsets have fallen behind, becoming a victim of a lack of technological advancement or insufficient investment. But the funny thing is, the hardware seems to be more sophisticated than ever. Take Pimax\u2019s upcoming Dream Air and Dream Air SE<\/a>, for example. While the headsets are delayed until December, the specs on them look enticing for VR enthusiasts, to say the least. According to Pimax, its headsets both weigh less than 200 grams, come with micro OLED panels, and the Dream Air will have a 4K resolution in each eye. And that\u2019s just the areas that Pimax is competing with other headsets on.<\/p>\n

One feature that its headsets will have that no other competitor will is a motorized self-tightening headstrap<\/a>\u2014 totally unnecessary\u2014but is also admittedly pretty damn cool. And\u00a0this thing will automatically adjust the lenses to match your vision, so you don\u2019t have to screw around manually adjusting IPD settings and whatnot. I have no idea how either of these features works since I haven\u2019t used the Dream Air line at all, but just their existence says to me that VR and XR headsets clearly have more to offer innovation-wise.<\/p>\n

\"Meta\u00a9 Adriano Contreras \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

And Pimax isn\u2019t the only one pushing forward in the category: Samsung appears to be on the precipice of releasing its Project Moohan XR headset<\/a>, a competitor to Apple\u2019s Vision Pro that should deliver displays that are equally as premium and a UI that might be just as intuitive in a package that (hopefully) costs a lot less than $3,500. And that\u2019s not even accounting for a rumored upcoming version of the Vision Pro<\/a>, which may knock down the price and feature an even more powerful chip.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s clearly progress in the pipeline, and potentially substantial progress, but excitement over that progress doesn\u2019t seem to match up. For the third consecutive year, sales of VR headsets declined<\/a> in 2024, even with Apple\u2019s entry into the XR scene and the release of Meta\u2019s very affordable Quest 3S headset that does most of what the Quest 3 does for just $299. In May, Meta, the biggest player in the space, saw its Reality Labs revenue decline 6%<\/a> because of waning Quest sales. The point is, people aren\u2019t buying headsets even if they\u2019re nicer than they ever were.<\/p>\n

In one way, I get it. While the Pimax Dream Air headsets are light, they\u2019re also tethered to a PC, which isn\u2019t exactly the most immersive experience one could have in VR.\u00a0 And the Vision Pro? Well, no tether there, but it\u2019s heavy\u00a0and expensive. Plus, there\u2019s an external battery pack, which feels like its own kind of tether in a way, since you have to carry that around while you\u2019re groping the air in XR. Even the Quest 3S<\/a>, which is a great middle ground of weight, capability, and a truly unbeatable price, struggles with the inherent obstacles of wearing a big headset on your face\u2014you get sweaty, hot, and your head comes out looking like you\u2019ve been snorkeling for the last hour.<\/p>\n

As great as XR and VR experiences are, they\u2019re still niche for lots of those reasons and more, and those downsides might feel even more stark when you compare them to emerging devices like smart glasses. I just got a chance to try Meta\u2019s Ray-Ban Display<\/a>, and the appeal is immediate. They\u2019re a reasonable weight, they do useful stuff like messaging and navigation, and they come with Meta\u2019s Neural Band that makes navigating the UI intuitive. Sure, they\u2019re nowhere near the capability of a full VR or XR headset, and the price is still high ($800), but the benefits to owning a pair are clear right out of the gate.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not willing to put the proverbial nail in XR and VR headsets\u2019 coffin just yet. They\u2019ll have a time and place as long as we\u2019re still struggling to miniaturize AR into a device that doesn\u2019t weigh our heads down, which could be quite a while. But maybe headsets are a lot more niche than we expected, and maybe no matter how bright and clear we make the screens or how seamless the UI is, they\u2019re still just a bridge to something smaller, lighter, and more Ray-Ban-like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If mixed reality and virtual reality are still a big thing, you wouldn\u2019t know it based on Meta\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3162],"tags":[1662,598,542,53,16,15,3243,3244,101063],"class_list":{"0":"post-448464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-apple","9":"tag-meta","10":"tag-samsung","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-virtual-reality","15":"tag-vr","16":"tag-xr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115260540205254032","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}