OptoFidelity with over 370 employees located in Europe (Finland), the U.S and China, in  provides advanced test results that empower their customers to bring new groundbreaking innovations faster to the market. Their optical metrology products and solutions are renowned for their precision, repeatability, and traceability. They minimize the risks and offer our customers a clear view of their product development and production quality. Their work is defining the standard for assessing the quality of AR/VR/MR waveguides and devices, setting a new benchmark for image excellence.

A new report by OptoFidelity states that mixed reality glasses and headsets are complex devices made of multiple components that work together, aiming for total immersion. One of the biggest challenges with MR devices has been the see-through latency. With the new Apple Vision Pro now out, OptoFidelity wanted to see how well it compared to some other MR devices on the market.   

What is Photon-to-Photon Latency

Head-mounted displays Photon-to-photon latency describes the time it takes for the image to be transferred through the headset, to the user’s vision.  When measuring the latency, we calculate the time difference between the lit of the light* and the sense of that light on the location of the perceiver. 

How OptoFidelity Performed the Testing

We used OptoFidelity BUDDY 6 tester with See-Through Measurement LED target add-on. While the theory of the measurement is quite straightforward, there are a few details to take note of. Within the system, there are several frequencies involved. The frequency of the blinking target, the frequency of the Device Under Test (DUT) see-through camera, the DUT display frequency, and the frequency of the sensor.  

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BUDDY 6 backlight sensor has a high enough frequency (100 kHz) to capture the relevant changes. The test length needs to be long enough and the LED blinking rate suitable so that the sensor can capture the waveform generated by non-synchronized components running on their individual frequencies.

Benchmark Results

As you could below, the results from HTC VIVE XR Elite, Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro, and Apple Vision Pro make it crystal clear that Vision Pro is the hands down winner. The first and most notable observation is the Apple Vision Pro’s extremely low latency of ~11ms.

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OptoFidelity confirms that Apple’s claim of their groundbreaking reduction of see-through latency is true.  The results show that Apple crushed Meta Quest Pro. For more on this, review the full report by OptoFidelity.

It's great to have professionals like OptoFidelity present real test results and I hope more testing companies will surface over time to provide consumers with real facts to assist them in comparing headsets.

Why do I say that? Because having the CEO of Meta critiquing Vision Pro yesterday was so off-the-wall desperate. It just showed that Meta is running scared. Apple Vision Pro has only been out a few weeks. In contrast, Facebook acquired Oculus back in 2014. They had a ten year lead on Apple and got embarrassed on day one with Vision Pro's features that Quest never pursued. Trying to play catch-up marketing wise and yammering about open and closed models and "Fanboys" getting upset, just made this CEO look like a real amateur. It was just sad to watch.  

So thanks to OptoFidelity for their report that shows the world just how much better Vision Pro's see through latency really is over Meta's Quest. Clearly Apple has set a new standard right out the gate.

Side Note: Patently Apple reached out to OptoFidelity to ask them what the "lit of the light" meant. Answer: The lit of light means an LED pattern they show to the Vision Pro VST cameras with a given timestamp. Then they measure the pattern through the display and compare the time.