- Leak teases Asus Tarius VR headset
- The Tarius will boast eye-tracking and advanced displays
- Probably one of the first 3rd party Horizon OS headsets to ship
Since the announcement that Asus, Lenovo, and Xbox would be partnering with Meta to create third-party Horizon OS VR headsets—that’s the operating system Meta’s Quest devices use—we’ve heard next to nothing about them, which has led me to worry that maybe the plans had fallen through, just like the Meta-LG Collab apparently did.
Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case, at least for Asus. We finally have our first details on its Tarius Horizon OS headset – and it’s already proving exactly why these collaborations need to happen.
Part of the Asus ROG family of devices (which suggests it will have a heavy gaming focus) the Tarius is reportedly the device’s codename, with details being leaked by Lunayian – who was spot-on with the Meta Quest 3S leaks. Luna adds that the Tarius will include eye-tracking and face-tracking, and it will use either micro-OLED or QD-LCD with local dimming displays – presumably to achieve high contrast for stunning images.
NEW: Details on the upcoming ASUS ROG VR headset running Meta Horizon OS. It’s codenamed Tarius and will likely be one of the first 3P Horizon OS HMDs to ship. It is planned to include Eye Tracking and Face Tracking. The displays will be QD-LCD with local dimming or µOLED. pic.twitter.com/K5pYxcBK4h12 January 2025
While this isn’t much to go by, these specs alone would suggest that the ROG headset will be a high-end (and expensive) VR gaming headset. You won’t see eye-tracking on low-end machines, and the same goes for these screens – which could compete with the impressive screens we got from the Apple Vision Pro.
As always, remember that leaks should be taken with a grain of salt as nothing is official yet, although Luna’s track record means these leaks are still worth our attention.
A high-end hybrid?
Unless the Asus Tarius headset is packing some kind of next-gen chipset instead of the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 we have in the Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S, its screens may be overkill for standalone experiences. That said, they’d be ideal for PCVR – powered by a high-end Asus PC like the 5090-packed laptops it showed off at CES 2025.
This could mean that the Tarius is aiming to do what the HTC Vive Focus Vision tried and (sadly) failed to do: be a full-on VR headset hybrid for both superb stand-alone and PCVR.
Thanks to Horizon OS, the Tarius already has a significant head start on the standalone front over the Focus Vision thanks to the operating system’s best-in-class suite of exclusive software.
If it can also manage its weight and comfort – and add features like DisplayPort connectivity for a lossless video connection to a PC – the Tarius could be the high-end hybrid headset we’ve been waiting for.
And that is exactly what I wanted from these collaborations.
A golden age of VR is approaching
Meta’s more mass-market oriented Quest headsets are great, but because they need to be a mid-range product to appeal to as many people as possible, they can’t specialize in appealing to a specific segment, like advanced gamers.
This means that these specialized customers have had to settle for either expensive headsets that lack Horizon OS and therefore feel completely second-rate, or a Quest headset that is great value for money but doesn’t deliver the visuals they want and deserve – in essence, they force us to choose software or hardware superiority.
The Tarius is already shaping up to be the ideal VR enthusiast device as it looks to deliver in terms of both software and hardware. There’s a lot more we still need to learn about it from a price and specs perspective before we can declare it a VR champion, but if Asus can stick the landing, its device could rocket to the top of our best VR -headset list – and I can wait to find out more about that.
