Lenovo, Asus, and Microsoft partners with Meta to bring VR headsets with Quest operating system

Meta has opened its Horizon OS, which is the same operating system that Meta Quest VR headsets run on, to third-party makers. With this, Facebook's parent company wants to become what Microsoft is for PCs but for headsets. Asus and Lenovo are two of the very first companies that went on board.

To fill you in, before this announcement, Horizon OS was simply called Meta Quest software. This VR headset operating system is based on Google's Android Open Source Project with a custom UI that the company specifically designed for virtual reality and augmented reality (AR) devices.

The operating system also has an app store similar to what you will find in Apple Vision Pro. It offers a wide range of virtual and augmented reality apps and games. Also, the Horizon OS supports face, hand, eye, and inside-out position tracking. There's support for passthrough technologies as well. That allows the users to see and interact with the world around them through the built-in cameras of the VR headset.

With a new name on the operating system, Meta is now opening all these third-party makers. But that's not the only aspect that got renamed. The company is also renaming the app store to Meta Horizon Store and the companion app to Meta Horizon.

As for the VR headsets from Asus and Lenovo that will be based on the Meta Horizon OS, the processors will likely be from Qualcomm for all of them. The company noted in its announcement that Snapdragon SoCs, such as the XR2 Gen 2 found inside the Quest 3 (available on Amazon), "are tightly integrated" with Meta's "software and hardware stacks."

The announcement further adds that VR headset makers that are building new hardware for the "new ecosystem" can leverage the advantages of these Snapdragon chipsets and "custom software enhancements." Basically, the open nature of the Meta Horizon OS won't be introducing non-Snapdragon-powered headsets anytime soon.

Regarding Microsoft's involvement, Meta is working with the company to bring out "a limited-edition Meta Quest" that will be "inspired by Xbox." It will likely be a gaming-focused VR headset. There's no word on pricing and release dates yet. However, Zuckerberg has noted that it will likely "take a couple of years" for the new ecosystem of hardware devices to become available.