Meta revealed Quest 3, its next standalone VR headset, earlier this month, promising to be slimmer and more powerful than Quest 2, as well as to support color passthrough for augmented reality. Now, famed dataminer ‘Samulia’ has discovered what looks to be an early footage of the ‘Smart Guardian’ function in operation on the headset.
Samulia has released four films that appear to be a work-in-progress look at a new user experience (NUX) for Quest 3. The films below appear to demonstrate how a novice user may set up and utilize the headset’s guardian feature, which is intended to keep users safe from colliding with objects.
The movies, which appear to be early prototypes, appear to be comparable to other videos included in Meta headsets to teach basic features such as how to utilize hand-tracking, guardian setup, how to wear the headset for maximum comfort, and so on. Here are the videos, courtesy of @Lunayian on Twitter:
Via Samulia, some early NUX animations for Meta Quest 3’s room scanning technology.
🧵 (1/4) pic.twitter.com/7AaerFv9QE
— Luna (@Lunayian) June 11, 2023
In the first two films, it appears that a user is scanning their playspace with the headset’s inside-out sesnors, which includes the detection of things such as sofas, coffee tables, workstations, TVs, desktop PCs, and ornamental items—all of which appear to be detected and individually meshed.
🧵 (4/4) pic.twitter.com/V5rk9pnUMn
— Luna (@Lunayian) June 11, 2023
The Smart Guardian, which alerts the user to nearby items, is demonstrated in the following two films. There also appears to be a major workspace marking feature, similar to Quest 2 and Quest Pro, as well as a small clip of the user playing with a ball in mixed reality, which notably accounts for the user’s furnishings as play surfaces.
Meta hasn’t elaborated on its Smart Guardian technology, which was initially referenced in a leaked roadmap provided by Mark Rabkin, Meta’s VP of VR. Quest 3 will, however, “seamlessly blend your physical world with the virtual one,” with its system capable of “intelligently understanding and responding to objects in your physical space and allowing you to navigate that space in natural, intuitive ways that were nearly impossible before.”
Samulia also has a track record of extracting data from Quest firmware versions before they are officially announced. They’re credited with discovering the NUX video in 2021, revealing the first look at Quest Pro, as well as obtaining the Meta logo before it was formally shown during the company’s February 2022 pivot announcement.
