Photos leaked online today show a new Oculus Quest and new touch controllers.
Reliable sources refer to the new device as the “Oculus Quest 2,” although it’s unclear whether it’s an informal or temporary nickname, or the device’s final name, and tell us it should go into mass production next week.
This week’s leaks
The final leaks started on Wednesday when prolific tech leaker WalkingCat tweeted a render of a new Oculus headset.
The picture not only revealed the new design, but also showed what a new position for the top cameras looks like. This could lead to a larger tracking area for these new touch controllers. The new photos now show a clearer view of the positioning of the top cameras.
Of course, the picture also showed a blank space in which the slider for setting the Quest’s lens separation is located. This slider on the original Quest allows users to adjust the position of the lens to match the center of their eyes. This can provide a clearer visual image for some people with off-average interpupillary distances. Some speculated that the slider might be on the other side or in the headset, but the leaked photos show no such control.
WalkingCat tweeted another picture today showing the headset from behind. The lenses look like they might be new, but that remains speculation on our part with no further information. If they are new, it is possible that they will fit into a wider spectrum Interpupillary dIstances (IPDs) compared to previous designs like the Oculus Go and Rift S, but unfortunately the leaked photo on the back is too blurry to see anything useful at this point.
New ‘Jedi’ Oculus Touch
Also pictured is an Oculus Touch controller with a light-colored main body and a matte black face.
This would be the third version of the Oculus Touch. The first was shipped in late 2016 as an accessory for the original Oculus Rift. The current version comes with Oculus Quest and Rift S.
Not everyone was happy with the changes from Oculus Touch v1 to v2. As we found in our review, the handle doesn’t feel as ergonomic and the battery compartment slides off too easily.
Oculus Touch v1 (shipped in 2016) and Oculus Touch v2 (shipped in 2019)
The new Oculus Touch seems to revert to the face design of the original, with a handle that seems like a middle ground between the two.
What other changes are pending for this new touch under the hood? A reference to ‘Oculus Jedi Controller for Oculus Del Mar’ was discovered in the Oculus Mobile SDK documentation back in March.
In April, Gerald McAlister of RGB Schemes found a driver for the ‘Jedi’ controller in the latest firmware for the Consumer Quest. We analyzed the driver file and compared it to the current touch driver file.
This week we discovered that the code referencing “Jedi” was present in the latest public evaluation of the Oculus PC software code at the time of writing.
The code suggested a controller with the same buttons and triggers (as we see in the leaked images). However, the code also suggested some under-the-hood improvements: a higher rate infrared LED pulse mode that could relate to better tracking, a new accelerator and gyroscope, some form of analog finger sensing, and a haptic thread, which is not available in Touch v2.
It is unclear which of these potential improvements may occur in the final product, if any.
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