They Fail to Address the Issue

When it comes to standalone XR headsets, two key aspects are driving the innovation: shedding weight and upping the performance. Even though Meta recently unveiled its Orion AR glasses complete with a wireless compute unit, the company’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, remains unconvinced that this setup is the ultimate solution for standalone VR gaming.

As the head of Meta’s Reality Labs XR team, Bosworth frequently opens up about various topics during his Instagram Q&A sessions, where he mixes both professional insights and personal musings. In his recent chat, he candidly shared the company’s skepticism about wireless compute units’ compatibility with standalone VR headsets.

“We’ve explored the concept many times. These wireless compute pucks don’t really tackle the core issues. When you go wireless, you still need a battery in the headset, and that adds to the weight. Sure, the thermal management might improve, which could boost performance slightly, but you’re hitting bandwidth limits with radio usage,” Bosworth explained.

Despite the technical challenges, Meta is determined to keep its products consumer-friendly. The new Quest 3S, for instance, starts at an affordable $300 for the 128GB model. Bosworth elaborated, “Implementing a wireless compute puck would massively escalate costs. Even with the main silicon housed in the puck, you still need substantial processing power in the headset for display functions and data management. It just doesn’t add up in the end—it barely reduces weight but drastically boosts costs and complexity.”

This stands in contrast to Meta’s Orion AR prototype that does utilize a wireless compute unit. However, Orion’s estimated cost of $10,000 per unit—due to the expensive silicon carbide lenses—renders it impractical for mass production. In some instances, like in AR glasses focused on delivering basic graphics, wireless pucks make sense.

Nonetheless, Bosworth mentioned that when Meta’s first consumer-ready AR glasses hit the market, they won’t be priced like the Quest. In an earlier statement from September, he confirmed that these glasses “won’t be cheap,” though the goal is to position them within a range comparable to other tech gadgets, like phones and laptops.