Apple Vision Pro is a mixed-reality (MR) headset developed by Apple Inc. It was announced on June 5, 2023, at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, and pre-orders began on January 19, 2024. It became available for purchase on February 2, 2024, in the United States. A worldwide launch has yet to be scheduled. The Vision Pro is Apple's first new major product category since the release of the Apple Watch in 2015. For over 10 years, many XR enthusiasts and developers including myself have been waiting for Apple's take in the XR industry.

Apple markets the Vision Pro as a "spatial computer" where digital media is integrated with the real world. Physical inputs—such as motion gestures, eye tracking, and speech recognition—can be used to interact with the system. Apple has avoided marketing the device as a virtual reality headset, along with the use of the terms "virtual reality" and "augmented reality" when discussing the product in presentations and marketing.

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The device runs visionOS, a mixed-reality operating system derived from iOS frameworks using a 3D user interface; it supports multitasking via windows that appear to float within the user's surroundings, as seen by cameras built into the headset. A dial on the top of the headset can be used to mask the camera feed with a virtual environment to increase immersion. The OS supports avatars (officially called "Personas"), which are generated by scanning the user's face; a screen on the front of the headset displays a rendering of the avatar's eyes ("EyeSight"), which are used to indicate the user's level of immersion to bystanders, and assist in communication.

Two months after being formed as a company, Palmer Luckey's Oculus VR launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign on August 1, 2012, for their virtual reality headset, named the Rift. The main purpose of the Kickstarter was to get an Oculus Rift prototype—now referred to as DK1 (Development Kit 1)—into the hands of developers to begin integration of the device into their games. The Rift DK1 was released on March 29, 2013. To this day, Palmer Luckey and his DK1 are widely credited to be the definitive reason for the reignited interest and potential of the XR Industry.

Meta Quest 3 is the first mass-marketed mixed-reality (MR) headset developed by Reality Labs (originally Oculus VR), a division of Meta Platforms. It was unveiled on June 1, 2023, and released on October 10 as a successor to the Quest 2.

The headset features updated hardware with elements of the Quest Pro, including a thinner form factor and lenses, and additional sensors and color passthrough cameras intended for mixed reality software.

The Quest 2 is a virtual reality (VR) headset developed by Reality Labs, a division of Meta Platforms. It was unveiled on September 16, 2020, and released on October 13 as the Oculus Quest 2. It was then rebranded as the Meta Quest 2 in 2022, as part of a company-wide phase-out of the Oculus brand following the rebranding of Facebook, Inc. as Meta.

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It is an evolution of the original Oculus Quest with a similar design, but with a lighter weight, updated internal specifications, a display with a higher refresh rate and per-eye resolution, and updated Oculus Touch controllers with improved battery life. As with its predecessor, the Quest 2 can run as either a standalone headset with an internal, Android-based operating system, or with Oculus Rift-compatible VR software running on a personal computer.

First introduced at the Google I/O 2014 developers conference, the Google Cardboard is a discontinued virtual reality (VR) platform developed by Google. Named for its fold-out cardboard viewer into which a smartphone is inserted, the platform was intended as a low-cost system to encourage interest and development in VR applications.

Oculus Rift "Consumer Variant 1", also known simply as Oculus Rift, is a discontinued virtual reality headset developed and manufactured by Oculus VR, a former virtual reality company founded by Palmer Luckey that is widely credited with reviving the virtual reality industry. It was the first virtual reality headset to provide a realistic experience at an accessible price, utilizing novel technology to increase quality and reduce cost by orders of magnitude compared to earlier systems. The headset was also the first to introduce the "Oculus Touch Controllers" that has changed the way we interact in virtual experiences. Oculus Rift was announced in January 2016, and released in March the same year. The device constituted the first commercial release in the Oculus Rift lineup.

The first-generation Oculus Quest is a discontinued virtual reality headset developed by Oculus (now Reality Labs), a brand of Facebook Inc., and released on May 21, 2019. It is the first true standalone VR device, that can run games and software wirelessly under an Android-based operating system. It supports positional tracking with six degrees of freedom, using internal sensors and an array of cameras in the front of the headset rather than external sensors. The cameras are also used as part of the safety feature "Passthrough", which shows a view from the cameras when the user exits their designated boundary area. A later software update added "Oculus Link", a feature that allows the Quest to be connected to a computer via USB, enabling use with Oculus Rift-compatible software and games.

The Samsung Gear VR is a virtual reality headset developed by Samsung Electronics, in collaboration with Oculus VR, and manufactured by Samsung. The headset was released on August 21, 2015. When in use, a compatible Samsung Galaxy device acts as the headset's display and processor, while the Gear VR unit itself acts as the controller, which contains the field of view, as well as a custom inertial measurement unit. The Gear VR was first announced on September 3, 2014. To allow developers to create content for the Gear VR and to allow VR and technology enthusiasts to get early access to the technology.