The new Meta Quest 3 mixed reality headset has been praised for its high quality passthrough leading to unreal augmented reality gameplay. However, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth claims this is just the beginning of the headset’s potential.
While Meta already has brilliant passthrough on its now-dead Meta Quest Pro, the new headset is far better than the Meta Quest 2. Nevertheless, Meta is planning on improving the hardware’s capabilities via software updates in the future.
In a recent Ask Me Anywhere thread, via MRN, Bosworth claims that Meta is already working on huge improvements to the passthrough technology in the Meta Quest 3.
“I've been thrilled with all of people's experiences with passthrough so far, which has been super positive. We've seen people going about their day doing the dishes with it, I love to see those videos. But the answer is yes, it will continue to improve,” he told fans.
“As we continue to get real-world lighting conditions and information from the headsets that have been picked up, we start to tune the algorithms that drive it more effectively. And so I do think it will continue to improve from here for a little while, as we do a better job of estimating where your hands are and working with distortion around that and things like that. We are going to continue to work on it as we have with the Quest Pro."
Passthrough technology and hand tracking were massively improved over the lifecycle of the company’s last headset, the Meta Quest 2. Over time, hand tracking evolved from a cute gimmick to a way of actually controlling the headset both in and out of games.
At the time of writing, mixed reality fans are extremely happy with the quality of passthrough, even if it isn’t as clear as not having a headset on at all. If the passthrough technology can get even better, it’ll be the best passthrough in the industry. Well, at least until the Apple Vision Pro releases.