Back in April last year, Meta shook up the VR scene with an exciting announcement: Horizon OS, their exclusive system for Quest headsets, was set to become available on third-party hardware. We heard names like ASUS, Lenovo, and Xbox would be among the first to roll out these new XR devices. However, since that initial announcement, Meta has been pretty quiet. Enter Luna, a well-known figure for leaking VR info, who now hints that ASUS might be leading the charge.
Luna is no stranger to the VR rumor mill. This leaker has previously spilled the beans on several Meta projects before they were officially confirmed. Remember when Quest 3S was announced? Luna had already tipped us off long before. And who could forget the surprising addition of an Action Button spotted on the headset? Luna had that one pegged too.
Through datamining, Luna even unearthed some internal setup videos for Quest 3 way ahead of time, not to mention various software features like those handy app pins on the Universal Menu dock that Meta was experimenting with. Now, tapping again into their network of anonymous sources, Luna reports that ASUS’s Republic of Gamers headset could be leading the pack as one of the very first third-party Horizon OS head-mounted displays to hit the market.
The headset, allegedly codenamed ‘Tarius’, might offer some cutting-edge features. Luna suggests it will incorporate both eye and face tracking capabilities, matching up conceptually with the advanced features found on the Quest Pro. Display-wise, we could be looking at either quantum dot LCD with local dimming or the promising micro-OLED technology.
If these details hold up, ASUS could be set to deliver something more than just a Quest 3S copy with flashy RGB lights. This could signify a real shift away from what Quest currently brings to the consumer table, with its lineup comprising the $500 Quest 3 (512GB) and the $300 Quest 3S (128GB).
Of course, while it’s always wise to take such reports with a hint of skepticism, there’s no denying that Meta seems to be gearing up for a big move. This is likely in response to Google’s unveiling of Android XR, which is set to make its own waves on Samsung’s forthcoming XR headset—codenamed Project Moohan—slated for a public release later this year.
