Meta’s Open-Air VR Glasses Test Passthrough Design

The Verge’s reviewer says he is unlikely to buy the $1,299 product, calling it too expensive and saying his feelings about Meta are conflicted. He also says Meta has changed the game. After trying the Meta VR Glasses alongside Valve’s Steam Frame, Apple’s Vision Pro and the Google / Xreal Aura back to back, he writes that the appeal is not simply that they look like glasses, that they are five times lighter than a typical headset, or that they cost much less than the $3,700 Vision Pro.

The reviewer says the difference is what a wearer sees and feels, and what the wearer does not see and feel. Because the Meta VR Glasses are glasses rather than goggles, the wearer is not fully enclosed or isolated and has real peripheral vision. In the center, the user sees a live video feed of the room; thick rims surround that view; beyond the rims, the user sees the actual surroundings with the naked eye. Even during a game, the wearer retains peripheral vision.

The article says this matters for people who are uncomfortable in VR at home because they cannot afford to feel isolated from children or pets. The reviewer also says he has never felt comfortable wearing headsets on a plane, train or in a park because he does not like being surrounded by strangers he cannot easily see. Women have told him VR is a nonstarter because of long hair or makeup; many headsets balance weight by sandwiching the head between a back strap and a front cushion, creating hassle with a high ponytail or smears. Glasses could be a solution because they rest on the ears and float before the eyes instead of pushing on the head. The industry has suggested for years that headsets will eventually make way for glasses.

The article adds that when the industry talks about glasses, it usually means transparent glasses that let users see the real world while virtual objects appear across the entire frame. Today’s transparent-display glasses have improved, but they are not there yet. Their lenses may look like glasses and offer a glasses-like field of view, but the displays inside light up a much smaller area. When the reviewer sweeps his head left, right, up or down, virtual objects disappear even when he is still looking roughly in their direction.

The Verge lists a series of field-of-view figures. In 2013, Google Glass offered a postage stamp-sized 15-degree diagonal field of view above the right eye. Microsoft’s HoloLens offered 34 degrees in 2015. Four years later, HoloLens 2 reached 52 degrees diagonally. The Xreal One Pro glasses the reviewer has been testing offer 57 degrees, and the Xreal Aura will push transparent glasses to 70 degrees diagonal this fall. Even with the Aura, the article says, 70 degrees diagonal is more like 60 degrees horizontal by 40 degrees vertical. Humans have roughly 120 degrees of binocular vision alone, while VR headsets such as the Meta Quest 3 and Steam Frame offer around 110 degrees horizontal, making a virtual world feel as if it surrounds the user.

Transparent glasses are also transparent, the article notes. Glasses such as the Aura must make projected light compete with the real world while still allowing the user to see through them, often with projectors right against the brow. Virtual objects can seem ghostly unless electrochromic lenses darken the clear lenses at the push of a button, blocking the view of the world. Even then, games, movies and virtual desktops are better in a VR headset, where virtual light and real light do not have to compete. In headsets such as the Steam Frame, Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro, the real world is seen through passthrough vision, a live camera feed, while virtual objects appear at the correct depth and block real-life objects behind them. Those devices, however, weigh four to eight times as much and are fully enclosed.

The article asks whether lighter, open-air glasses could use passthrough vision instead of transparent lenses. It says the Meta VR Glasses offer 70 degrees by 66 degrees, compared with 60 degrees horizontal by 40 degrees vertical for transparent glasses. The Verge says the difference feels larger than it sounds. The difference is not only raw field of view, according to the article: the real and virtual fields of view are the same, so anywhere the wearer looks inside the lenses, virtual objects can fill that frame instead of being abruptly cut off.