The Meta Quest 3 finally has the AR glasses feature I wanted, but it’s far from perfect
Meta has announced a Meta Quest 3 upgrade which I was really hoping for, but the new HDMI Link app doesn’t offer the simple implementation I wanted.
The free HDMI Link app, announced in a blog post, lets you use a Quest 3, Quest 2, or Quest Pro as a display for any device you connect via HDMI or DisplayPort, with the caveat that you’ll need some additional hardware. When I saw the announcement, I was excited—but then I started reading.
In the world of best smart glasses, wired connections are far more common, with the Xreal Air 2 speculated to connect to your phone or console via a USB-C to USB-C cable (and an adapter if necessary) to mirror your display to a giant virtual screen. And this is a feature I desperately wanted the Meta Quest 3 to have, because it would make one of my favorite XR gadgets just a little bit more useful.
The idea is simple enough, and works just like those AR smart glasses. Well… almost. You fire up the HDMI Link app and connect your Meta Quest headset to devices with an HDMI or DisplayPort output. There’s one last piece of kit, though; between the headset and the external device, you’ll need a capture card – specifically, a UVC and UAC compatible capture card.
I tried using just a USB-C cable with my DisplayPort-capable phone, and even the Xreal Beam Pro, but to no avail. The app window explicitly says that a capture card is needed, likely because the Meta Quest 3 lacks the necessary hardware.
How to start
Unfortunately, I don’t have a capture card to try out this new feature at the moment. I hope to get my hands on one soon so I can show you my experience with my own eyes. However, it is indicative of the lack of simplicity that this approach provides.
At the moment, Meta doesn’t make an official product you can buy to take advantage of this HDMI Link feature, with their own blog post simply stating that you’ll need “additional third-party hardware.” It doesn’t even point you in the direction of a Meta-recommended capture card, which will put off anyone who isn’t technically savvy.
Unless you’re a gaming content creator, you probably don’t have a capture card lying around.
This is definitely a great new feature for the Meta Quest 3 headset – it’s just a shame that it’s not quite what I was hoping for. Its unpolished nature may be the reason the HDMI Link app isn’t on the official Quest store – instead it’s hosted on Meta’s App Lab store.
It’s easy to find on your Quest 3. Just use the Store search bar and search for HDMI Link. You’ll see the free program waiting for you. If you have a capture card, you can try it out right now.
