With the release of the Meta Quest 3s, I’ve noticed a number of VR shooting apps recommending it. After all, it’s cheaper, right! It’s never easy to sell an expensive piece of hardware on top of an expensive piece of software on top of the need to pick up a grip for the VR controller. This brings the whole cost of getting into VR firearms training down. But, there are some important things that the Quest 3 leaves out that you probably won’t want to miss out on.

Before I get into why the regular Quest 3 is better than the 3s, let’s talk briefly about why getting an VR headset makes sense in the first place. While games are the biggest use of VR technology now, there’s vast potential for productive uses. Remotely controlling robots going into dangerous environments, training to perform dangerous tasks without the danger, and moving expertise into rural areas without needing to pay them a premium are all great examples that are being worked on.

For firearms, VR technology gives you the opportunity to take dry fire practice to the next level. Squeezing the trigger and dropping the striker on an empty chamber while aiming at something requires both already knowing what you’re doing and a lot of honesty with yourself. It’s easy to ignore a little jerk in the sight picture and pretend that it doesn’t matter, for example. In VR, using an app like Ace VR, that little jerk ends up being a missed shot, and you can’t rationalize that away or fail to see it.

But, to really get the most out of a program like Ace VR, you need to see what you’re doing. The main accuracy exercise, where you take aim at a target that goes further away the more you hit it properly, becomes almost impossible to do at further distances when there’s not a clear picture. This makes it difficult at best to get the most out of this virtual training.

When I switched from the Quest 2 to the Quest 3, things massively improved. I could see the target clearly all the way out to the end. Shooting at drones became a lot easier, as I could see the drones clearly at greater distances. Other things like red dot sights, got a lot easier to use. This happened because the Quest 3 had a much better graphics processor, but more importantly, it had better pancake lenses and a higher resolution display for each eye. I then added some prescription lenses to it to avoid needing to wear glasses, and things got extra clear.

The problem with the Quest 3s is that it has the computer power of the Quest 3, but with the inferior fresnel lenses and lower resolutions screens of the Quest 2. This is a good cost-saving measure, of course, but the loss of clarity means that you can’t get as much good out of shooting games and training apps.

The difference between the headset prices sounds big when you compare the $300 3s to the $500 3, but when you add a membership in Ace VR, other games that involve tactical shooting and accessories, the $200 difference becomes a much smaller fraction of the overall purchase. In the end, when you’re spending $800-$1,000, saving $200 and losing out on some of the training benefits makes a lot less sense.

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