What We Know So Far About the New ‘Oculus Quest 2’
It was a week of leaks which began on Wednesday when a Twitter account @WalkingCat shared what appeared to be the renders of the new ‘Oculus Quest 2’ headset alongside its new controllers. On Friday, the account doubled up by sharing new renders from a side angle. These images have been of high enough resolution to enable us to glean some information about the upcoming Quest headset.
Here is what can be deduced so far: –
Design
From the images, the Oculus Quest 2 will have a new color, a new strap design as well as a wider camera placement.
Facebook appears to have dropped the all-black traditional color for its current Quest headset and opted for a two-tone look with a white exterior along with black facial interfaces as well as black controller surfaces. The white color on the new Quest headset looks quite elegant as can be seen from the images below.
It also appears that Oculus has replaced the fabric material on the sides of the current Oculus Quest headsets with a plastic material.
The new headset now has a narrower side depth which implies that its size will be slightly smaller than that of the current Quest headset. Hopefully, this will result in a lighter and more comfortable HMD.
The Strap
The Oculus Quest 2 also appears to have a new strap design. The current Oculus Rift, Go and Quest have elastic straps attached to the sides and the top which the wearer can use to adjust the headset to fit their heads. The design of the current Oculus straps means that users have to make three adjustments on the straps which can cause confusion or an improper fit.
The Quest headset still has the top strap but it appears Oculus has replaced the side strap with a single rear adjustment similar to what the Valve Index and the PlayStation VR uses.
Cameras
The current Quest headset has cameras in the top corners. In the new Quest, they appear to have been moved more to the side of the headset. This design could lead to a wider tracking range for the new Touch controllers. Facebook is currently able to achieve the same in the Rift S with cameras on the side of the main body of the head-mounted device. The bottom tracking cameras, however, appear to be unchanged.
No Lens Separation Adjustment Slider
The current Oculus Quest headset features a lens separation adjustment slider at the bottom. However, the leaked Oculus Quest 2 images don’t seem to have the IPD slider. However, it still has the volume buttons but the images show an empty space on the other side.
The distance between a person’s eyes is known as Interpupillary Distance (IPD) and it varies from person to person. The IPD slider enables the headset wearer to adjust this distance in order to realize a visually comfortable Virtual Reality experience. If the center of the virtual reality lens is too far from the user’s eye, then they will see a blurry image in which the case the static objects will not look fully solid.
In the current Oculus Quest headset, the IPD slider has been positioned at the bottom of the headset and enables the wearer to adjust the headset lenses to match their IPD.
The IPD slider did not feature in the Oculus Go headset neither does it appear in the current Rift S headset. Facebook explained that the Rift S lenses were suited for users with an IPD of 61.5mm and 65.5mm which accounts for approximately 46% of men and 43% of women according to publicly available IPD dataset.
However, the leaked images only showed us one angle of the headset and it could be possible that Oculus has installed a different IPD slider mechanism in the Oculus Quest 2 that was not visible in the leaked images.
Controllers
RGB Scheme’s Gerald McAlister discovered a driver for the ‘Jedi’ controller inside the latest firmware for the consumer Oculus Quest headset in April this year. According to an UploadVR analysis, the new driver may potentially refer to a new controller that features a similar input scheme but probably with better tracking, finger sensing and haptics.
Size
In May of this year, Bloomberg reported that Facebook was building a new Oculus Quest headset that is 15% smaller physically and 20% lighter and which has a 90Hz refresh rate. Bloomberg also reported that the new headset will be developed with cheaper materials and slightly better controllers. This report aligns with the leaked images released last week.
Release Date
Just over a fortnight ago, the Japanese tech news publication Nikkei reported that Facebook’s new Quest headset would enter production later this month with a production target of 2 million units.
https://twitter.com/h0x0d/status/1286656885760786434
Last week, the Twitter leaker @WalkingCat posted another image of the Quest VR headset with the caption September 15, implying that this will be the release date for the headset.
https://virtualrealitytimes.com/2020/07/28/what-we-know-so-far-about-the-new-oculus-quest-2/https://virtualrealitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-new-Oculus-Quest-600x598.pnghttps://virtualrealitytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/The-new-Oculus-Quest-150x90.pngHardwareOculus QuestTechnologyVR HeadsetsIt was a week of leaks which began on Wednesday when a Twitter account @WalkingCat shared what appeared to be the renders of the new ‘Oculus Quest 2’ headset alongside its new controllers. On Friday, the account doubled up by sharing new renders from a side angle. These images...Sam OchanjiSam Ochanji[email protected]EditorVirtual Reality Times - Metaverse & VR