- An online leaker says he found Meta's unreleased VR headset in a room at the hotel where he works.
- He posted photos and a video of the device on Facebook and told The Verge its owner has reclaimed it.
An online user posted photos and a video online Sunday showing what appears to be Meta's unreleased Quest Pro virtual reality headset.
The user, Ramiro Cardenas, said on Facebook that the headset was left in a room at the hotel room where he works, as The Verge first reported.
The device was in a package that had "Meta Quest Pro" written on it, with a label that said, "not for resale — engineering sample." Cardenas is shown removing both the headset and its redesigned controller in the video. He originally posted photos of the device in the comments of a post on a Facebook Group dedicated to chatter about Quest devices.
He told The Verge that the person who was staying in the hotel room has reclaimed the device. Meta did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
The Meta Quest Pro is the updated version of the Meta Quest, the popular headset which recently saw a $100 price increase so the company can invest more in new VR research and development, Meta said in July.
This is notably not the first time a product from a major tech giant has surfaced. In 2010, a prototype of Apple's iPhone 4 was left in a bar. And in April, a prototype for Google's Pixel Watch was found in a restaurant, and photos of it were shared with Android Central.
The reported appearance of Meta's headset comes a month before the company is slated to roll out its new VR headset at Meta's annual Connect event on October 11. CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement on podcaster Joe Rogan's program in late August, and the company has been teasing the project, dubbed Cambria, this year.
Zuckerberg said the new headset will offer people the ability to maintain eye contact and track their facial expressions in virtual reality thanks to new sensors.
The device is part of Meta's endeavor to push heavily into the so-called metaverse, a landscape that allows users to interact virtually. The concept has yet to reach mainstream adoption.
Meta isn't the only tech company developing mixed reality technology and products. Bloomberg reported in August that Apple may be planning to name its unreleased headset "Reality One," "Reality Pro," and "Reality Processor."