Last April, Meta dropped a major announcement: they were planning to introduce Horizon OS, their Quest-exclusive operating system, to third-party headsets. While promising devices from ASUS, Lenovo, and Xbox, Meta has kept quiet about any developments up until now. However, new information leaking from a well-known insider, ‘Luna’, suggests that Asus might be the first company to bring this new technology to market.
Luna has built quite a reputation in the virtual reality community for providing accurate leaks about Meta’s tech projects. One notable scoop included revealing the Quest 3S name ahead of its official release, and discovering the Action Button feature on the headset.
Through extensive data mining, Luna also unveiled details like Quest 3’s room-scanning setup video before it hit the shelves in 2023. She’s even unearthed potential software features, such as Meta experimenting with pinning apps to the Universal Menu dock. Now, Luna, relying on information from an inside source, reports that the Asus Republic of Gamers headset could be among the first third-party devices to run on Horizon OS.
According to Luna, the device, supposedly codenamed ‘Tarius’, will likely boast eye-tracking and face-tracking capabilities, equipping it with features on par with the advanced Quest Pro. It’s rumored to come with either quantum dot LCD displays featuring local dimming or micro-OLED to ensure top-notch visual quality.
If these details hold true, it implies that Asus isn’t just crafting a Quest 3S lookalike with flashy RGB lights but is aiming for a significant step forward from Quest’s current consumer headset lineup, which includes the $500 Quest 3 (512GB) and the $300 Quest 3S (128GB).
Now, while these reports from Luna should be taken with caution, it’s evident Meta is eager to up the ante, particularly amidst Google unveiling Android XR on Samsung’s forthcoming XR device, codenamed Project Moohan, slated for a consumer release this year.
