Oculus Quest: True, Affordable, Wire-Free VR

Virtual reality has a Goldilocks problem. On one side, you have tethered headsets with all the processing power and position tracking you need to create an immersive virtual experience—but they’re expensive and require awkward cables to physically connect you to a computer or game console.

- Will Greenwald

On the other side are mobile and standalone headsets that don’t need any wires and cost much less than tethered headsets—but they have only a fraction of the graphical power and much more limited motion tracking than tethered models. Oculus covers both of those bases with the Rift (and now the Rift S) for tethered VR and the Oculus Go for standalone VR. Both embody the typical limits of their categories.

But now there’s the Oculus Quest, a standalone VR headset that embodies the best of both worlds. It doesn’t require a separate computer like the Rift and Rift S do, but it also isn’t limited to just orientation and motion-sensing with a single controller like the Go or the Lenovo Mirage Solo. Outward-facing cameras track the position of the headset and both Oculus Touch controllers, providing full room-scale VR with no wires. At $399 (for 64GB of storage; a 128GB version is available for $499), it costs twice as much as the Oculus Go and as much as the Rift S, and it solves most of the problems with both. The Oculus Quest is the ideal introduction to VR headsets, offering everything you need for an immersive virtual reality experience, and it earns our Editors’ Choice.

DESIGN

The Oculus Quest looks like a cross between the Oculus Rift and the Oculus Go. Like the Rift, it has a curved matte-black plastic front panel and a three-strap harness setup that forms a large oval to cradle the back of your head. Like the Go, it has fabric sides and an open speaker system that directs sound to your ears instead of on-ear headphones that attach to the sides of the headset.

Like Windows Mixed Reality headsets and the Rift S, the Oculus Quest has four cameras arranged on its front edges. These let the Quest monitor your position and surroundings, working with built-in motion sensors to provide six-degrees-of-freedom (6DOF) head tracking.