Meta built two prototype headsets with ultra-wide field of view in a comparable form factor to today's Quests, and will demo them at SIGGRAPH 2025.In advance of the conference, set to take place in Vancouver in August, the Display Systems Research (DSR) team in the research arm of Meta's Reality Labs division published an abstract for a paper simply called 'Wide Field-of-View Mixed Reality'.Meta's DSR team is well-known within the industry for developing and publicly showcasing research prototypes that push the state of the art for head-mounted displays, with the stated aim of one day passing the "Visual Turing Test", wherein you'd be unable to tell whether you were wearing safety goggles or an XR headset.Back in 2018 DSR showed off the original Half-Dome headset which, as well as having varifocal optics, had a field of view of 140°. Subsequent versions of Half-Dome had a smaller field of view, however, with Half-Dome 2 focusing on compactness and Half-Dome 3 moving to an electronic varifocal approach with no moving parts.Until recently, we hadn't seen any Meta prototype with a wide field of view again at all. Then, in October 2024, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth shared a photo of himself holding a headset with a very wide curved body, suggesting an ultra-wide field of view. He later said that it had a horizontal field of view of around 210°, but repeated his long-standing view that an ultra-wide field of view isn't worth the tradeoffs on "weight, form factor, compute, and thermals". 0:00 /0:06 1× What makes the two new research prototype headsets that DSR is showcasing fascinating is that they seemingly achieve an ultra-wide field of view without the form factor tradeoff seen every other attempt to date, including that prototype Bosworth was holding in October and the original Pimax headsets.Both new prototypes achieve 180° horizontal by 120° vertical field of view in a form factor "comparable to current consumer devices", the abstract claims, and the short clip showing the headsets being worn supports that claim.For comparison, Quest 3 has a field of view of less than 110° × 96°, while Quest 3S has less than 96° × 96°, and human vision is very roughly 200° × 135°, depending on the shape of a person's face.The researchers say this is being achieved through the use of "a custom optical design leveraging high-curvature reflective polarizers", and the passthrough mixed reality version uses "custom cameras supporting more than 80 megapixels at 60 frames per second".While this apparent optics breakthrough could bring Meta one step closer to one day shipping an ultra-wide field of view headset, we should note that it would still have the compute and thermal tradeoffs Bosworth has mentioned as a dealbreaker - the extra field of view means far more geometry has to be rendered - and the abstract doesn't mention anything about weight. 0:00 /0:33 1× The full paper is set to be published on August 9, the day before SIGGRAPH 2025.Meta's DSR team also published the abstract for a second paper called "Hyperrealistic VR: A 90-PPD, 1400-Nit, High-Contrast Headset", wherein, as the title suggests, the researchers say they've combined above-retinal resolution with high brightness and high contrast for the first time, a combination they claim achieves "a new milestone on how realistic VR experiences can be".All three prototypes, the two ultra-wide headsets and the hyperrealistic headset, should be demoed at the SIGGRAPH 2025 conference, and UploadVR intends to be there to go hands-on and bring you our impressions.Meta's DSR publicly demoed high-brightness HDR at SIGRAPH 2022, then retinal varifocal visuals and reprojection-free passthrough at SIGGRAPH 2023, though didn't demo any headset at SIGGRAPH 2024. You can read our hands-on impressions of these past DSR prototypes here:Starburst: Eyes-In With Meta’s 20K Nit HDR Display TechIs high-dynamic range (HDR) the key to next generation VR displays? Hands-on time with Meta’s latest demo and an interview with the head of display systems research suggests it’ll be pretty key. Read on for details. At the recent SIGGRAPH conference in Vancouver David Heaney and I wentUploadVRIan HamiltonHands-On: Meta’s Retinal Resolution Varifocal PrototypeWe tried Meta’s Butterscotch Varifocal prototype which has dynamic focus, retinal resolution, and dynamic distortion correction. Read our impressions here:UploadVRDavid HeaneyHands-On: Meta’s Reprojection-Free Passthrough PrototypeAt SIGGRAPH 2023 we tried Flamera, Meta’s research prototype of reprojection-free passthrough AR. Read our impressions & thoughts here:UploadVRDavid Heaney