Quest 3S is on sale for $250 again, and from Best Buy it comes with a $50 gift card, 1 month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners.

For Black Friday 2025, the 128GB model of the headset was on sale for $250 ($50 off its regular $300 price), and the 256GB storage model for $330 ($70 off its regular $400 price), in a sale that ended after December 2. On top of this, Best Buy was providing $110 of perks. Now, Meta has brought the sale back, and Best Buy has brought its deal back too.

You can find the deal for the 128GB base model of Quest 3S here, and for the 256GB model here.

Both deals end after 11:59 pm PT on January 3, giving plenty of time to order for a holiday season gift.

In both cases, you still get 3 months of the Meta Horizon+ subscription, as with all purchases of new Meta Quest headsets.

You could use the $50 Best Buy gift card to get the Elite Strap to make the headset more comfortable for just $20, for example, while during the 1 month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (normally $30) you can play popular flatscreen games like Call of Duty on a giant virtual screen.

As for The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners, it's also normally $30, and it's widely considered to be one of the best VR games of all time due to its physics-based combat system, earning an 'Essential' score in our review.

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UploadVRJamie Feltham

While Quest 3S can run all the same content as Quest 3, and has the same fundamental capabilities (including the same XR2 Gen 2 chipset and 8GB RAM), if you have the funds we always recommend Quest 3 over Quest 3S. The proper Quest 3 features Meta's advanced pancake lenses which are clearer and sharper over a wider area, have a wider field of view, and are fully horizontally adjustable, suitable for essentially everyone's eyes. These pancake lenses also enable Quest 3 to be thinner, which makes the headset feel slightly less heavy.

Still, at $250 and with $110 worth of perks Quest 3S is hard to say no to, and it could be an impulse gift for the holiday season to bring a friend or loved one into VR and mixed reality.

Google's Android XR is getting an AI feature that can turn any 2D content, including games streamed from your PC, into 3D in real-time.

Called System Autospatialization, Google formally announced the feature during The Android Show: XR Edition today, saying that it will arrive in 2026.

"Just imagine if every game was immersive, every YouTube video was immersive, if the entire web was immersive," Google teased.

Out of the box, on an OS level, other platforms like visionOS and Pico OS let you easily turn 2D photos 3D, but Google's Android XR is currently the only for headsets that does the same for video, and the jump to real-time spatialization will be an even bigger leap.

That's not to say real-time spatialization doesn't exist anywhere else, with Viture virtual monitor glasses having a similar feature, as well as some experimental PC VR apps. But it's surprising that it's possible on the XR2+ Gen 2 chipset while it's also handling a full XR operating system.

Google says it will work for "pretty much any" app, and in multiple apps at once. The company's presentation depicted it being used for playing Cities: Skylines streamed from a PC, with the AI system depicted being able to tell the difference between the foreground UI and background game world.

We'll be sure to test the feature out when it launches on Android XR for Samsung Galaxy XR next year, as Google is making enormous claims here about the feature's capability.

Samsung Galaxy XR Gets Realistic Face-Tracked ‘Likeness’ Avatars

Samsung Galaxy XR’s Android XR now has a Persona-like realistic avatar system for video calls, called Likeness, as well as a Travel Mode and a built-in remote desktop app.

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The first clip of Xreal's Project Aura in use has been revealed.

A concept render was shown at Google I/O earlier this year when Project Aura was first announced as the second Android XR device, set to launch next year.

It's a prism-lens see-through device in a form factor that tries to imitate the basic appearance of sunglasses, as with Xreal's existing products. But while Xreal's current products primarily act as a virtual monitor for your existing devices, via the included cable, Project Aura will come with a tethered compute puck running Google's Android XR on a Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, the same inside Samsung Galaxy XR.

Xreal says Project Aura will have a field of view of 70 degrees diagonal, its widest yet, and have built-in head and hand tracking.

Most features and apps available on Galaxy XR will also run on Project Aura's puck, with some notable exceptions such as the face-tracked Likeness realistic avatars, as Aura doesn't have face tracking.

Today, during The Android Show: XR Edition, Google and Xreal showed off the device in a short clip. They also confirmed that it's still on track to launch in 2026 – just days after internal Meta memos leaked revealing that its headset with a tethered puck is delayed to 2027.

Note that while Xreal devices are designed to look like sunglasses, they sit much further out from your eyes than real glasses, and thus are a markedly different device category than the AR glasses in development at Meta and Apple. Those future AR glasses use a display technology called waveguides to sit as close to your eyes as regular glasses, while Xreal uses a far cheaper but also far bulkier optical approach. They also block out most light, so can't be used as regular indoor prescription glasses.

Essentially, you can think of Project Aura as a lightweight alternative to Samsung Galaxy XR that trades off field of view and opacity for sleekness, rather than competition for future outdoor AR glasses.

The confirmation that Project Aura is still set to ship in 2026 comes one month after Lynx revealed that Google terminated its Android XR deal. After Samsung, Lynx, Xreal, and Sony were the three companies Google had earlier confirmed were working on Android XR products. While declining to comment on the Lynx situation, Google confirmed that it's still working with Sony, though we've yet to see even a tease of a Sony Android XR device, and its SRH-S1 headset runs Sony's own fork of Android.

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The first major update for Google's Android XR on Samsung Galaxy XR is rolling out now.

The update brings a beta release of Google's Persona-like realistic avatar system for video calls, called Likeness, a Travel Mode, and a beta for a built-in PC remote desktop feature for Windows called PC Connect.

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Likeness (Beta)

Likeness is Google's realistic avatar system for video calls in Android XR, an equivalent to the original non-spatial mode of Apple Vision Pro's Personas.

Your Likeness replaces the video feed that apps would normally get from a phone's selfie camera, providing a virtual equivalent, and should thus work for any video calling platform without developer implementation.

Unlike with Vision Pro, you scan your face for Likeness by holding up your phone, not the headset itself. From here, the data is transferred to and securely stored on the headset. The Likeness app is currently only available on "select Android device models".

In video calls on Android XR, your Likeness is driven by Galaxy XR's eye tracking and face tracking capabilities in real-time, and the feed shows a virtual representation of your hands when you hold them up too.

Travel Mode

Android XR now has a Travel Mode, which when enabled, makes the positional tracking work properly on moving vehicles, such as planes and trains.

Apple was the first to launch this feature, alongside Vision Pro, and since then Meta, Pico, and Snap have followed.

Without a Travel Mode, the accelerometer and gyroscope in the headset's IMU will interpret the acceleration, orientation changes, and vibrations of the vehicle as your head movement, causing virtual objects and windows to drift off in the opposite direction.

Travel Mode works by having the headset rely more on computer vision from the cameras, typically incurring a small loss in tracking quality.

PC Connect (Beta)

PC Connect (beta) is a feature that lets you connect to and control your Windows PC as a virtual screen in Android XR.

After installing the streamer app on your PC, you can mirror your entire desktop or one window.

There are already many third-party apps on the Google Play Store that can do this, including Guy Godin's Virtual Desktop, but PC Connect offers a built-in option.

Quest 3’s Windows 11 Remote Desktop Gets Aspect Ratio Setting & Ultrawide Mode

The official Windows 11 Remote Desktop of Horizon OS now has 21:9 and 3:4 aspect ratio options, as well as an enveloping visionOS-like Ultrawide Mode.

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Meta has a partnership with Microsoft for an officially supported Windows 11 remote desktop system, leveraging the operating system's RDP system, with support for virtual extra monitors and multiple aspect ratios. Android XR's PC Connect doesn't seem to have Microsoft's involvement, and seems more basic for now, at least in beta, lacking these more advanced options.

We'll keep a close eye on Google through 2026 for further Android XR updates, such as whether a spatial version of Likeness arrives or advanced virtual monitor options for PC Connect.

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Google’s Android XR is getting an AI feature that can turn any 2D content, including games streamed from your PC, into 3D.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Meta is delaying its ultralight headset with a tethered puck to the first half of 2027, and, separately, starting work on a gaming-focused Quest 4, leaked memos reveal.

The two internal memos were sent earlier this week. They were first reported by Business Insider a few hours ago, and UploadVR can independently confirm their authenticity.

One was sent by VP of Reality Labs Maher Saba to staff, and mentions delaying the ultralight open-periphery headset with a tethered compute puck running Horizon OS that multiple reports, including our own, have suggested that Meta recently hoped to release next year. Various codenames have leaked for candidates for the product, including Puffin, Phoenix, and Loma.

Saba tells staff that the new goal is to release the ultralight device in the first half of 2027.

The headset will be focused on virtual screens and other seated use cases. Names that Meta has internally floated for the product have included "Quest Air", but it's far from certain what it will decide.

His memo also mentions the release of a new "limited edition" wearable device codenamed Malibu 2 in 2026. It's unclear what this will be, but it might be the rumored Prada Meta Glasses.

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The other memo comes from the heads of the Metaverse and Horizon OS groups within Reality Labs, Gabriel Aul and Ryan Cairns.

They suggest that the ultralight headset delay will give staff "a lot more breathing room to get the details right".

"There's a lot coming in hot with tight bring-up schedules and big changes to our core UX, and we won't compromise on landing a fully polished and reliable experience", they say.

Aul and Cairns also mention starting work on a next-generation mainline headset, which UploadVR understands would likely carry the name Quest 4.

This headset will focus on immersive gaming, bring a "large upgrade" over Quest 3, and "significantly improve unit economics". That strongly suggests an end to the strategy of subsidizing low-cost devices. Meta wants to slowly transition Reality Labs into a profitable division, and this will be a key part of that plan.

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Meta is prioritizing shipping an ultralight Horizon OS headset with a tethered compute puck in 2026, and might not ship a new traditional form factor Quest until 2027.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Work on a Quest 4 comes around six months after the cancellation of the previous candidates for a 2026 Quest 4 and Quest 4S line, a decision Meta made alongside prioritizing the release of the ultralight headset.

The new plans suggest the ultralight headset should land in the first half of 2027, with a traditional Quest 4 following at a later date, perhaps in the second half or in 2028.

The leaked memos come shortly after Meta officially confirmed "shifting some of our investment from Metaverse toward AI glasses and Wearables". And to be clear, within Meta, Wearables does not include Quest.

That doesn't seem to be stopping the company working on new headsets, but Saba's memo does mention needing to be "focused on making the business sustainable", and not subsidizing Quest 4 seems to be the result of that budget pressure.

He also mentions that teams should not use the ultralight headset delay to "add more features or take on additional work", and instead focus on polishing what they already plan.

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Keep in mind that Meta's hardware roadmap is constantly shifting, and the company frequently spins up and cancels headsets before they ship. When a specific product gets close to shipping, we'll bring you any reliable rumors of its imminent arrival. Until then, be ready for anything planned to get canceled or delayed.