Passthrough

A VR headset covers your eyes, so you cannot see the room directly. Passthrough solves this by feeding images from the headset's outward-facing cameras to the displays in real time. The result is a video view of your surroundings that you see without taking the headset off.

Black-and-white versus color

Earlier and lower-cost implementations use grayscale cameras and were mainly meant for quick checks, such as finding your drink or drawing a boundary. The PlayStation VR2 offers this kind of see-through view. Newer headsets like the Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest 3S use color cameras and depth sensing to produce a much more usable picture. High-end devices such as the Apple Vision Pro and the Samsung Galaxy XR aim for high-resolution, low-latency passthrough suitable for long sessions.

What it enables

• Quick awareness of your room without removing the headset.
• Mixed reality apps that place virtual objects on your real table or walls.
• Productivity setups with virtual monitors floating in your real space.

Limits

Passthrough is still a camera image. Fine text, such as a phone screen, can look soft, low light adds noise, and very close objects may appear slightly distorted.