Meta’s upcoming Quest 3 headset is slated for a Fall 2023 launch, possibly even at the company’s Connect developer conference coming September 27th. It seems Meta has suffered yet another unauthorized pre-launch unboxing of their hardware, echoing the Quest Pro leak from last year.

The video in question was posted to Reddit today, and subsequently captured and reposted in full by X (formerly Twitter) user ‘VR Panda. Alex From CHN’ before it was deleted by the original Reddit poster.

In the video, we get a brief (if not anticlimactic) glimpse at what appears to be the Quest 3 headset and Touch controllers. There’s not much else to say here: it definitely looks like Quest 3, floppy headstrap and all.

Meta announced Quest 3 back in June, just days prior to the reveal of Apple Vision Pro. Meta’s upcoming mixed reality headset is launching this fall for the starting price of $500, bringing with it much of the color passthrough functionality of the pricier Quest Pro, which sells for double the price.

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At the time, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the company’s next standalone headset “[t]he first mainstream headset with high-res color mixed reality,” also touting it for its slimmer and lighter profile.

The headset, which integrates pancake optics instead of the Quest 2’s Fresnel lenses, is said to be “40% thinner” than Quest 2 when measuring without the foam facial interface.

Unboxing leak notwithstanding, we’re sure to learn more about Meta’s launch strategy at Connect in late September, and what games the company will highlight to make best use of the headset’s mixed reality capabilities.

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Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • ViRGiN

    High End VR is almost here.

    • LMAO

      Ignorant troll alert!.

  • Dragon Marble

    Hate these spoiler leaks.

    • Nobody’s forcing you to look.

    • gothicvillas

      It’s hardly a spoiler. Same looking hmd with the same horrible strap. That strap goes to bin the moment I have it my hands.

      • Dragon Marble

        Do you really hate the soft straps, or did the Youtubers make you believe so? The Youtubers made me believe the Quest 2 soft straps were trash. I bought the elite straps on day one, and later tried Bobo. It was years later that I simply decided put the original strap on. I was shocked. It was perfect.

        Of course. It made sense when I thought about it. All the other designs have the flaw of being rigid. They all have difficulty holding on to your head when you move. Creating balance by adding weight is not worth the tradeoff .What fits a body part better than something light, soft and flexible, like socks?

        In the internet age, we need to be vigilant of crowd mentality. The initial bad impressions with the soft straps probably came form the Oculus Go. Then the stigma just stuck even though multiple revisions have made them completely different today.

        • NL_VR

          The softstrap is terrible on Quest 2. i used it for 2 weeks then got an elite strap.
          when that broke i had to use the softstrap again and it was terrible.

          • MarcDwonn

            Similar story here. I used the Q2 with Vive DAS for about a year – was still front heavy and had to use a power bank to distribute the weight better – the whole thing weighed an insane ~920g! Before i sold it, i reverted back to the original strap – all the weight with that extra leverage in front of the face is an ergonomic failure on FB’s part. And it doesn’t even stay in place, if you have hair on your head, LOL…

          • Dragon Marble

            We always assume the companies don’t know what they are doing. This is not a mistake. It makes perfect sense to make the simple, light, cheap and more convenient option the default configuration.

        • MarcDwonn

          Have you actually tried using the default strap on the Quest 2? It doesn’t even last 2 minutes without slipping off forward. It’s horrible ergonomics, especially for people with hair. How it got greenlit for production is a mystery to me.

          • Dragon Marble

            Of course I did. It’s Bobo that has the slipping problem for me, not the soft strap. The reason is simple: the Bobo strap is not elastic. If you want a rigid strap, at least it needs to be spring loaded.

          • Cl

            I have the vive DAS on the quest 2 and it’s great

          • kraeuterbutter

            i have the bobo headstrap as well: for me the worst for the Quest2 (But there are people loving it)

            i think one of the miss-conceptions of VR-goggle is, that you have to “strap” them to your face
            that the Quest2 is very frontheavy and not thin makes it even worse
            i have several Headstraps bought for my two Quest2s over the years..
            but nothing compares to a Pico4 (slightly modded): thats the way to go: balance ! battery at the back, slim visor, visor only about 250-280g light in the front
            that results in a headset that you dont have to “strap to your face”
            working in VR on the desktop, playing games with not to fast movements you even dont need to strap it at all at your face, you just lay it on your face like a hat
            its WORLDs better comfort that way
            no Quest2 (and i guess also not the Quest3 with softstrap) can provide that, you cant mod it that way

          • Andrey

            Just to add an opinion from the other side – as a “person with hair” (I actually had very long hair until 2022) I never ever purchased all those fancy straps (really don’t like the design of all those custom things) and was using only the default one + on the second year of headset’s life in my hands I also bought a plastic “bowl” for 5$ on a famous chinese site just to try it out – and it worked really great and made it even more comfortable. I played thousands of hours like it, even in something very active like Beat Saber, Blade and Sorcery (outdoors) or Contractors with a lot of movement and rotation + my shortest session usually was about 2 hours. The “secret” is pretty simple – you need to tighten it up very much (on the very borderline of comfort, the good sign is when after playing you have an Oculus logo on your face clearly visible so even your relatives notice it). Also I think that head’s shape/size also matters to some extent, but for me personally default strap was very good and I don’t plan to change it on the Quest 3 either (though now I will definitely buy this plastic “bowl” for Q3 stap as soon as it will appear because it did a very good job on balancing some of the Q2 weight and with smaller Q3 it should be just perfect).

        • gothicvillas

          youtubers? lol whats that. Dont give a flying duck about some youtuber analysis. original headstrap presses too much on my face and after 1-2hrs game play my face would have semi permanent marks. I swapped to BoboVR with additional battery at the back and wow, game changer! Love the ease to put it on and calibrate to my likening so it sits nice. My spouse and me, we play lots of RacketNX (hectic 360 tennis game) and its so much better not to have anything pressed on your face. It is liberating feeling!

        • SoTired

          It’s almost as if people have differently shaped and sized heads…

          The og strap slips up at the back and drops the visor down at the front, doesn’t matter what I do, it might last 5 or 10 minutes but it will always slip. I had the same issue with the old CV1 but that wasn’t as bad.

          Got one of those Bobo-type straps, it was a revelation. The weight sits on my head now, it’s no longer front heavy and reliant on holding at the back. VR went from a frustrating experience to a good one.

          • Dragon Marble

            I think the best solution is to have soft straps of different shapes and sizes. Some may need a horizontal band at the top, others may need a cup at the back. But it should be built with all soft material — cloth, rubber and silicone — so that the headset can be put on and take off like a baseball hat without twisting any knobs. If anyone needs counterbalance, they can Velcro attach a portable battery.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            That’s the one thing we should have understand from the Bigscreen Beyond: soft straps can be very comfortable, IF the facial interface fits well. In this case the bone structure of the face will hold the HMD in place and also carry the weight of the HMD, and the soft straps work well by evenly distributing the force needed to press the HMD against said bone structure. Meta only delivers one type of facial interface, which will have been designed to fit the largest possible number of users with some tolerance thanks to the padding.

            Things look very different if the bone structure differs too much, usually causing a lot of pressure at one particular position. In my case the cheek bones seem to protrude too far, making any HMD I’ve tried very uncomfortable. Since the facial interface doesn’t get the full contact as intended, I have to choose between a bad and loose fit that uncomfortable, but not painful, or a very tight straps that press the HMD firmly against the face (mostly the cheeks), but that becomes unbearable after a few minutes. This then leads to looking into all types of alternatives that allow removing the pressure from the face, be it a stiff strap, counter weights, very thick padding or halo strap designs like the Quest Pro that allow to use the HMD without a facial interface by moving most of the weight to the forehead. At least if again the bone structure there fits the construction of the HMD.

            So I think that the whole discussion about fixed vs soft straps is mostly a misconception what the problem actually is. The straps function is only to support the facial interface that actually holds the HMD in the right position, and depending on fit users either need a strap that actually works for the well fitting facial interface or tries to replace the holding function for a badly fitting facial interface.

            Meaning the Quest 3 will have similar issues to the Quest 2. The soft strap will work for the vast majority of users, as the facial interface is designed for an “average” bone structure, but users with differing skull shapes will have either limited comfort or need to find replacement solutions. The way out of this is already known with individually created facial interfaces, but this adds a lot of costs and makes sharing the HMD harder. We’ll see in early 2024 how well Apple’s approach with individually fitted paddings from a selection created for different head shapes will work out.

            This should be rather easy to replicate for either Meta or a 3rd party provider, and maybe the strange situations where people hate or love either soft or stiff straps, but rarely both, will just go away once we have a way to ensure everybody can get a good facial fit to begin with. The fact that there have been zero hacks to add something like the Elite strap or DAS to the Beyond clearly shows that the strap isn’t the actual issue here.

          • Dragon Marble

            That’s a very good point. I forgot to mention that Quest 2 has 3 different facial interfaces. It’s very important to choose the right one for you. Then you’ll likely find the default strap just fine.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Meta provide a standard, narrow and wide version, but these are basically all the same, just stretched along the x-axis. That’s not sufficient to deal with problems like elevated cheek bones, for these the actual curve has to be different.

            Bigscreen posted some interesting facts about their individual facial interfaces. Some people have very weird head shapes, e.g. two eye sockets at different heights, or one/both eyes further inside the skull. These are visually barely noticeable, but 2mm difference may mean that with a standard facial interface, almost all the weight ends up resting on just one side.

            Apple said they 3D scanned 4000 different user heads to come up with their set of paddings. I assume they properly tested these, so whatever number they offer will be a good indicator for a reasonable number of different padding shapes a HMD should provide for face and back of the head to cover most of the user base. People with significant asymmetric or untypically shaped heads will still have to resort to individualized offerings, and technically a company like VR Cover should have no problem to offer individual facial interfaces for the Quest 2/3 the same way Bigscreen does, requiring a 3D scan and then carving either the padding directly or a mold for a foam padding with a CNC router. The material costs are a few bucks, the question is mostly if the market is large enough to pay for the required development.

            Interestingly the most comfortable HMD I ever wore is still a Cardboard I created myself 2014, simply because it was glued together out of cardboard, foam and some soft straps, all of which were not only very light, but also allowed to trim them with scissors in an iterative process until they exactly fitted my face. So maybe all we need is someone to offer a facial interface for the Quest 2/3 with way too thick padding that comes with a pair of scissors, so that every user can cut off tiny pieces of foam until their individual perfect fit is achieved.

      • Maxime Degrace

        peoples’ complain for absolutly noting , so try to rest your head on teh back of your chair you know cuz you have money of a real fancy chair with head rest so the Strap is Perfect try to watch a movie while your head is resting lying on a saufa the strap is fantastic for this you ya Bitch all you want a strap is perfect …. so this is shy thre is a Strap dont like it , then dont buy it , I have tried them all and went back to the strap

      • ViRGiN

        ah, yes, gotta buy ‘accessories’ on day 1. sounds like you are just addicted to content of shills like mrtv.

        • Andrew Jakobs

          No, the standard strap with the Q2, and now q3 IS just really crap, just like most of your comments.

          • ViRGiN

            Ignorant troll alert!

          • LMAO

            Ignorant troll alert!.

          • ViRGiN

            Ignorant troll alert!

          • LMAO

            Well said.

    • sfmike

      Yeah, that shaky video really ruined my day.

  • impurekind

    Ignore than Meta is telling you it’s much smaller and and also that they’ve just changed a huge chunk of the Quest 2’s white plastic around the gasket area to black, so the white part appears much smaller than before, and I don’t think this headset really is much smaller overall at all.

    • Andrey

      Um… Didn’t you see this image of both Q2 and Q3 alongside each other without facial interface where it can be clearly seen that Q3 is almost (40%) thinner than Q2? It’s just the facial interface makes it to look like that.
      P.S. Just checked – it’s literally the 10th second of the Q3 announcment video.

    • NL_VR

      i think the black part is the face gasket. its smaller as you now can move the lensen also.

      • impurekind

        Oh, it’s smaller, but Meta is saying it’s 40% smaller, which would be nearly half the size/depth of the Quest 2, whereas it’s looks maybe 20% smaller at max imo, so I think Meta is bullsh*tting just a little here.

        • NL_VR

          if you remove the face gasket on both headsets you se its more than 20% smaller

          • impurekind

            And how many user to you imagine are actually going to do that. It would be like saying the head strap for the Quest 3 is now better than the Elite strap for Quest 2, if you go out get the new Elite 2 strap for Quest 3 or whatever.

          • NL_VR

            i dont know what you mean, the headset is clearly smaller. you are also able to move the lenses away/closer to your eyes. i dont know if its just he lenses och the face gasket that shrinks/expand.
            it seems like you se everything like all plastic all in one almost like Q2 but its not.

    • CrusaderCaracal

      It’s sneaky of them, but the headset is definitely smaller.

  • fcpw

    They’re definitely swinging hard on the make it look as dorky as possible front.

    • Rudl Za Vedno

      Yep, it’s a nerd magnet for sure. All black or all white would make it look much nicer imho.

      • sfmike

        White is the fashionable tone right now and we can’t buck trends as “influencers” will mock us if we do.

        • James Cobalt

          Your comments on this site are consistently tinged with victimhood or feeling othered. You ok? Don’t forget to check in with yourself and take a breather.

          • Van Halen

            Every honky is a head shrink

      • Blaexe

        The cameras probably need the black casing to reduce light spill. All black would go against the “mainstream Quest” design philosophy they’re going with now.

        Although I agree that all black would look better in this case.

        But who knows – it’s a very distinct look at least. Similar to the recent Google Pixel phones with the black bar.

  • Dave

    It’s a far cry from the Apple’esq packaging of the original CV1 (before Touch). What a shame. I hope they bring back a premium brand PCVR headset, I know it’s not on there radar, but with all that research, one can hope.

    • xyzs

      It quite small, which is good.
      It looks clean.

      The fact the cardboard is brown rather than painted, who cares ?

    • ViRGiN

      You don’t want a premium PCVR headset, you just want display port connector.

      • LMAO

        Ignorant troll alert!

    • James Cobalt

      Yeah but the compact size and lack of package processing makes it more profitable for the company and better for the environment. Also means I won’t feel bad throwing the box in the recycling bin.

    • shadow9d9

      “Their”

      PCVR users don’t buy games. It is a dead market.

      • TH_VR_RD

        PCVR isn’t going anywhere, it’s just much smaller than the standalone VR market. That’s roughly comparable to saying PC game developers should all switch over to developing iOS titles to gain a larger audience. It would make financial sense from a pure profit standpoint but it’s not going to happen.

        • LMAO

          Well said.

          • ViRGiN

            Ignorant troll alert!

      • Arno van Wingerde

        Although more people drive Toyotas than Porsches, it does not mean there is no market for Porsche…..

      • CrusaderCaracal

        PCVR user here, I buy games

    • Blaexe

      Let’s be honest, the OG Rift packaging was over designed as hell. It’s just not necessary.

      I unbox this thing one time and I’m done. Make it as cheap we possible.

    • TH_VR_RD

      The Q3 might end up being a decent PCVR headset for those who don’t want to buy the Crystal/Aero. I plan on picking one up to replace my long-serving yet obsolete G2.

      Evidently a lot of work has gone into allowing for higher bitrate link which might eliminate most artifacts. Couple that with Meta’s world class lenses and 2100×2100 displays and it might be a decent PCVR experience.

  • Van Halen

    Wow another headset to play beat Saber and super rumble on

    • Jeremiah Tothenations

      I unironically can’t wait for Beat Saber 2!

  • Every year a Quest headset is mysteriously unboxed before the launch :|

    • ViRGiN

      Because Meta is actively working unlike every other company in the space

  • Ad

    I think it’ll sell less than 10 million in the next 2.5 years.

  • Sky Castle

    Another new headset to play same old games. Yawn.

    • ViRGiN

      Says the dumbass who’s always on here 24/7
      Move out of your moms basement little kid.

  • Xron

    A shoe box O_o

  • Lucidfeuer

    Any idea what the weight reduction is?

    • FXTrader

      Wight is the same (Or very similar), but wight distribution is way better so it feels very light and well balance.

  • Arno van Wingerde

    The most fascinating aspect of unboxing videos is that people find them fascinating! Who cares about the box it comes in?

  • CrusaderCaracal

    Why do people care so much about box presentation, you open it once and then it’s over.