A user setup video has reportedly surfaced of Meta’s long-rumored thin and light VR headset, suggesting we may see its official unveiling at Connect in September.
The News
The images below reveal a blurry look at what is unmistakably Meta’s upcoming puck-tethered VR headset, which has been referred by number of internal codenames over the years: Puffin, Loma, and now Phoenix.
First discovered by X user ‘ToastConcern‘ in Quest’s firmware, the images above are actually screenshots of the device’s initial setup video, captured in full by ‘NoriDoesVR‘. See the full video below:
As confirmed in the work-in-progress video, Phoenix features a slim, almost glasses-like profile, independent lens spacing, removable nose clips for individual user comfort, and built-in hand and eye-tracking. More importantly, it’s said to feature a tethered compute puck, which offloads the bulk of the weight from the user’s head.
While those images of Phoenix are intentionally blurry, it’s very similar to a render generated by data miner and serial leaker ‘Luna‘, which was based off their impressions of the device.
Considering Meta is now just including user setup content in Quest’s firmware, it looks increasingly possible the company is hoping to unveil it at its annual Connect developer event.
Connect is set to kick of on September 23–24, 2026. While the company teased what seems to be a new pair of smart glasses, the event is also focusing on “the latest in VR, wearables, metaverse, and AI.”
My Take
TL;DR: Meta has taken its past failures and largely translated them into wins, although I’m still skeptical that the component crisis hasn’t introduced more friction in VR hardware development than Meta can reasonably stomach.
According to a previous report from The Wall Street Journal last year, Meta was internally hoping to price Phoenix somewhere under $1,000. Considering both RAM and storage have skyrocketed since this time last year, and now Qualcomm chips are getting a price hike too, Meta’s next premium VR headset may be particularly premium, which could be setting the company up for another uphill battle.
That said, higher component prices are a new level of friction is affecting almost every company right now hoping to release something that doesn’t cost the equivalent of a black market kidney, Steam Frame included.
Anyway, here’s how Meta’s strategy stands today, at least according to previous rumors and reports: in addition to Phoenix, Meta is still reworking its Quest 4 strategy, which could conceptually put the two devices in different segments—a high-end device for prosumers and professionals (Phoenix), and the lower-end console for consumers (Quest 4). This is essentially the same strategy Meta tried when it first offered Quest Pro, but failed at fairly quickly, so it’s not without risk.
Don’t get me wrong. Quest Pro was a great first-gen device for 2022, but it was expensive at the launch price of $1,500. Meta eventually realized this, lowered the price to $1,000 and accelerated the launch of Quest 3, which not only subsumed a lot of Quest Pro’s abilities (minus the eye-tracking) but did it at a third of the price. It turned a failure into a quick win.
With Phoenix though, Meta has an opportunity to offer a real productivity device, owing to its small form-factor and focus on long-term user comfort. But if Meta can’t capitalize on Phoenix, it’s possible consumers may not see the downstream effects like it did when Quest Pro gave up the ghost and Quest 3 and Quest 3S took its place.
Can Meta pull it off again? I’m skeptical. Meta could decide tomorrow it simply doesn’t care about consumer VR headsets, cancelling any affordable Quest successor and favoring productivity-focused VR from now on. I certainly hope that isn’t the case, although it’s pretty evident at this point we’re in the middle of a VR winter in terms of content development, which could stymy consumer engagement and attraction in the future.
That said, Meta has proven itself agile enough in the past to make it work either way. The company has a history of releasing VR devices that typically take on multiple purposes after the fact, and end up serving their next hardware strategy, “failure” or not.
Some increasingly ancient-feeling history: released in 2019, Oculus Rift S was a marked improvement over the original Oculus Rift CV 1, which had arrived three years prior. Rift S not only allowed Meta (then Facebook) to appeal to upgraders looking for a new headset within the same PC VR ecosystem, but also extract as much money from Rift’s back catalogue of apps before giving up on PC VR gaming entirely, as the company moved on to largely concentrate on developing its Quest standalone platform. Whether that was the intention or not doesn’t really matter; the company had a strategy that allowed it to capitalize on the launch of one piece of hardware to benefit the next.
The same happened with Quest. Launching alongside Rift S, the original Oculus Quest performed well enough, although it lacked power, couldn’t play the same games as Rift without a tether, and was priced at $400 for the 64GB—three areas Quest 2 would immediately improve upon a short year later, culminating in the company’s best-selling VR headset to date. The original Quest was a glorified developer kit.
Whatever the case, we’re sure to learn something about Meta’s future VR strategy at Connect in a few weeks, and possibly sooner, as the company has a pretty terrible track record at keeping anything but its most sacred one-off prototypes under wraps.
