Project Santa Cruz: Hands-on with Facebook’s next-generation wireless VR headset

Facebook’s Oculus division is making good progress on its next-generation virtual reality headset, dubbed Project Santa Cruz. It’s a standalone device that has no wires and does not have to be connected to a personal computer, leaving the wearer free to wander around a room in VR. It creates a liberating feeling that allows you to become much more immersed in your environment.

Oculus showed off the prototype on stage at its Oculus Connect event keynote speech yesterday at the San Jose Convention Center. It is distinct from the mobile-based Samsung Gear VR and the Oculus Go $200 headset announced yesterday. Santa Cruz is also different from the Oculus Rift PC-based VR headset.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.