Is this the next Oculus Quest?

What you need to know

• Oculus is expected to debut at least one new Quest-branded headset in the near future.
• Many have speculated that it'll be called the "Oculus Quest S" or "Oculus Quest Pro".
• The original Oculus Quest is still difficult to find because of short supply.

While Facebook is still working to create enough Oculus Quest's to meet the growing VR demand, rumors and leaks of the next Oculus Quest just keep coming. This latest leak comes in the form of what appears to be a render of a new Oculus Quest headset, dropped on Twitter without any description or name. Clad in an all-white plastic shell with what appears to be a redesigned cloth headstrap, this fleeting look at a possible Oculus Quest successor sure seems to have quite a few changes in store.

Based on the image above alone, we can see that the cloth exterior of the Oculus Quest has been swapped out for plastic. This, along with changes that have been rumored in earlier leaks, could help bring down the weight in a fairly substantial manner. Given the heft of the original Oculus Quest, that's an important metric. This new model also appears to be sporting a completely redesigned headstrap that looks like a hybrid of the current Oculus Quest design and the Oculus Go's cloth headstraps. Hopefully, this increases overall comfort without sacrificing the rather good speakers built into the Oculus Quest's headstrap design.

Five things we want to see in an Oculus Quest 2

While there seem to be a fair number of potential positives to glean from this image, there is also a potential negative to draw as well. It appears that only the volume rocker remains on the underside of the headset, which means that Oculus could be switching to digital IPD (inter-pupillary distance) adjustment for the next Oculus Quest. While that bodes well for the clarity of the display, which could feature a similar LCD panel to the Rift S, it means that the comfort advantages of physical IPD adjustment won't be found here.

Then there's the matter of the controllers which, despite the color change, seem identical to the current-generation oculus Touch controllers. While that's not a bad thing, by any means, it likely infers that this isn't the Oculus Quest 2 because it doesn't feature the "radically redesiged" Jedi controllers that we've seen mentioned in several other leaks. Without seeing the top, it's impossible to know whether or not Facebook has added any additional cameras to the headset to further improve tracking. From this image, though, it seems like it retains the four existing cameras from the Oculus Quest. Facebook's annual Oculus Connect conference is just around the corner, so it's likely that, if this leak comes true, that the next Quest could be unveiled there.