June Wan/ZDNET
The Meta v63 update released last week delivered the ability to comfortably use the Meta Quest 2 and Pro headsets while lying down. However, the absence of the Meta Quest 3 in the release notes was notable, leaving Quest 3 users to wonder why Meta’s latest virtual reality headset wasn’t included.
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We’re now hearing a bit of what’s going on in the background, as Meta CTO Andre Bosworth explained in his most recent AMA (ask me anything) on Instagram. To answer a user’s question, “Laying down mode for Quest 3 when? As a disabled person it’d triple my time spent in Quest 3,” Bosworth answered:
“We are planning to bring it to Quest 3, as I’ve said previously. It’s a little bit different because the Guardian system is a little bit different — safety still matters a lot. We had to kind of redo the Guardian system with Smart Guardian.
We’re just doing the work to make sure that we can do it reliably and safely and without having any negative impacts on the rest of the safety features. So, I like it too. We are working with good urgency here. I don’t have a date for you exactly. But it is coming, and we’re making good progress on it.”
Smart Guardian is an advanced feature on the Meta Quest 3 that enhances the safety and immersion of VR experiences with an intelligent boundary system that maps surroundings in great detail. This feature — exclusive to the Meta Quest 3 — is an upgraded version of the previous generation Guardian used in earlier Meta headsets.
The Smart Guardian feature leverages the Quest 3’s cameras and sensors to scan your environment and create a detailed mesh of the user’s surroundings. Because this feature is embedded in the Meta Quest 3, it makes enabling laying down with this headset a more challenging software upgrade than it is for the Guardian feature.
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The positioning and orientation of the headset — when the wearer is lying down — would likely not align with the expected use case of Smart Guardian’s object detection and detailed room scanning.
While we don’t know exactly when Meta Quest 3 users will be able to lay down to use their mixed reality headset comfortably, the fact that Bosworth claims they’re working with good urgency and making progress on it suggests we won’t have to wait too long.