Forward-looking: The virtual and mixed-reality industries haven't been in the spotlight as much since the advent of generative AI, but companies are still making new and interesting headsets. Meta, which dominates this market, has announced several prototypes that will be shown off next week, including an absolute monster that it says will bring a "new milestone for realism in VR."
Meta is showing off several prototype headsets at SIGGRAPH 2025 next week. The one receiving the most attention is called Tiramisu, which Meta says enables "hyperrealistic VR."
That incredible realism is the result of several impressive specs. The first is the contrast, which is around three times that of the Meta Quest 3. It also has a brightness level that reaches 1,400 nits, which is 14 times what the Quest 3 offers and an industry first.
Finally, there's the Tiramisu's angular resolution of 90 pixels per degree (PPD), which is 3.6 times more than the Quest 3. A higher angular resolution means finer detail and fewer visible pixels (screen door effect), with most high-end headsets in the 18-25 PPD range.
Meta says the end result is a VR headset that is "the closest we've come to a visual experience that passes the visual Turing test yet."
A headset that can create a world almost indistinguishable from the real one sounds like the sci-fi dream come true, but there are some caveats with Tiramisu. The first is that the field of view (FOV) is quite limited at 33° x 33°. The Meta Quest 3's FOV, for comparison, is 110° x 96°.
The other, obvious drawback is the headset's physical size. This thing is absolutely massive, heavy, and looks like a sure way to give yourself a sore neck. But it is just a prototype, so the technology could make its way into a more user-friendly form factor at some point.
"It really is like the first time you see 4K TV or an HDR TV, or the first time you go on a really immersive theme park ride that sprays water in your face. It's something new, and it's hard to understand this combination of numbers on a page really feeling different," said Display Systems Research (DSR) Director Douglas Lanman. "Honestly, it's the first headset in a while that really gives me a sense of wonder. It's the most realistic VR image I've seen yet, with very impressive specs that add up to something that does look more realistic than anything we've seen in VR before."
Meta also announced two other headsets: the Boba 3 and Boba 3 VR's. The headline feature is their massive 180-degree horizontal and 120-degree vertical FOVs, making them much closer to the human visual system, which is roughly 200-degrees. They also have a 4K x 4K resolution per eye and are are more user-friendly in terms of size and weight (660 grams in the case of the Boba 3 VR).
As with all prototypes, Meta emphasizes that the technologies in these headsets may never make their way into a consumer product, but they do give us an idea of where VR development is heading.
Meta's massive prototype headset could offer the most realistic VR experience yet
