Wait, Why Do I Want To Buy a *Third* VR Headset?

The endless pursuit of needless tech

My two VR buddies. Photo taken by the author.

I first got way into VR almost exactly one year ago. I bought a Quest 2 headset during one of its many “end of life” discounts, before it was yanked off the market at the end of 2024.

I was super late to the party. The first Quest arguably created the “mainstream” VR market, alongside the original PlayStation VR headset. I use the term mainstream in quotation marks because I think its breakout moments and its peaks are long behind us. The real boom came during and just after the pandemic lockdowns, when the timely launch of the Quest 2 led to an explosion in sales…and a bunch of false promises about the future that have never materialized.

I’m one of those rare unicorns that’s actually perfectly built to use VR all the time. I don’t get any kind of motion sickness from a headset, even when I use it for hours. I do wear glasses in my everyday life, but for farsightedness — which isn’t an issue inside VR with the way the focal systems work. In some weird way, even though I’ve still got a thing strapped to my head, wearing a VR headset is like taking a break from the glasses to use my actual eyes. Finally, I spend a good chunk of the day alone. I can happily disappear into a fully immersive environment without worrying about kids or pets running around…