Meta has been growing its line of everyday-wear smart glasses, but this hasn’t come at the expense of developing more in-depth VR and mixed reality products. The company announced that it will be demoing several prototype headsets at this week’s SIGGRAPH 2025 conference, including a “hyperrealistic” VR device and a mixed reality headset with an ultra-wide FOV.
Meta says that its “hyperealistic” VR headset, currently called Tiramisu, features a contrast roughly three times higher than the Meta Quest 3, as well a nearly four times higher angular resolution, with a brightness of 1,400 nits – 14 times higher than the Quest 3.
“Tiramisu isn’t something you can really understand just by reading an abstract,” adds DSR Director Douglas Lanman. “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. 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.”
The Boba 3 pair of research headsets are the latest in a multi-year project to bring modern VR and mixed reality into a FOV that feels more natural. While most consumer headsets have a horizontal FOV of ~110°, the human visual system’s horizontal FOV is roughly 200°. The Boba 3 models feature a horizontal FOV of 180° and vertical FOV of 120°—compared to 110° and 96° respectively for Quest 3.
“It’s something that we wanted to send out into the world as soon as possible, but it’s not for everyone,” Zhao notes. “It’s not going to easily hit a mass-market price point. And it requires a top-of-the-line GPU and PC system.”
