I've been a fan of HMD's for multiple uses since before the Oculus Rift. Plus, I've stuck with the Oculus system since owning the Rift. I've owned them all.
The Oculus, now renamed Meta Quest 3 is a huge jump above the Meta Quest 2. Been using it for mostly games now for a week and it is pretty amazing in both image quality, 3D surround sound, and speed of operation. There are many new features and even two new formats available with the 3. These are both Augmented Reality ( where information is placed in front of you while you see your real world in front of you); and Mixed Reality ( is more about adding Virtual Computer Games that come alive in your real world ). The Quest 3 can map your room by simply looking around and it draws a frame around every object. This allows objects in the game to recognize your real world stuff in your room. For example an combat game might allow a game enemy to hide behind your furniture and move while avoiding objects like a table or chair. One game preview I saw was how you combat a home invasion and take him down with your hand gun. Another is where you get into a fist fight with an opponent in your living room. Or learn to play the piano that is a virtual piano in your room. To date, only very expensive HMD's have offered AR and MR features. Now Quest 3 is bringing this to a consumer friendly affordable hardware.
The Quest 3 also supports hand tracking so you don't have to use the two controllers if the app or game supports hand functions. The limitation of this is that most games use hand controllers because certain buttons on the controller perform specific tasks. However, in the future games may simply show a virtual controller that is in your hand to access these special functions. Some games like Hubris and Red Matter already offer something close to this concept. Like your virtual hand could access a virtual control panel on your forearm with popup display in VR. The buttons are Virtual rather than real world controllers with buttons.
Another feature I am seeing are walking tours. There are over 150 locations around the world you can get on a treadmill and start walking through trails in like the Grand Canyon, or Bryce Canyon. Wearing the new high quality Quest 3 is like you are actually there. Unfortunately, many of these walking tours were produced 3-4 years ago in low resolution, but some are in VR180 3D at 6K resolution and this makes them appear like actually being there.
Many Best Buy stores now have demos where you can try one on. But, it will take some time to really experience what the Quest 3 can do in the privacy of your home. The store demo will just allow you to see the level of quality if you get a salesperson who can explain how to adjust it to your eyes. Also the Quest 3 now has a way to wear your prescription glasses inside the HMD so you don't need special lenses if you need to wear glasses. The face seal does need to be adjusted for your glasses. If you don't know about how to size the Quest 3 to your eyes, the experience will not be good. Wearing glasses inside the Quest 3 will reduce the field of view slightly so for optimum FOV, getting custom prescription lenses, cost between $75-$100 as an accessory is an option.
The negative so far is that the head strap that comes with really sucks. I've ordered a 3rd party one that is much better and allows additional batteries for up to 10 hours of use on quick magnetic mounted batteries. The Q3 only has about 90 minutes of play time on a single charge and takes about 90 minutes to recharge. So most people end up ordering one of several different hear strap systems from either Meta or 3rd party. I added one of these to my other Quest HMDs as well.
