Meta continues to go all out with its plans to produce mixed reality headsets and software for the mass market. Today the company announced that it will open up the operating system it uses for its own Meta Quest headphones to third-party device makers.

in a blog post, Meta announced that these third-party headphones will run on the Meta Horizon OS. This operating system was built from the ground up by the Android Open Source Project. Headquarters stated:

Developers and creators can take advantage of all these technologies through the custom frameworks and tools we’ve built to create mixed reality experiences, and they can reach their communities and grow their businesses through the content discovery and monetization platforms built into the operating system.

Meta is also renaming the Meta Quest Store, the digital showcase for its VR and MR apps, to the Meta Horizon Store. The Meta Quest mobile app will also change to the Meta Horizon app.

Asus will develop a gaming-oriented MR headset under its ROG (Republic of Gamers) brand with the Meta Horizon operating system. Lenovo will also create headphones with the Meta Horizon operating system, which will deal with “productivity, learning and entertainment”.

The most interesting product may come from a collaboration between Meta and Microsoft. The blog post states that the two companies will work together to release a “limited edition, Xbox-inspired Meta Quest.” The Meta Quest 2, 3 and Pro headset models all added support for Xbox Cloud Gaming via Xbox Game Pass Ultimate back in December 2023.

Any company that wants to make a headset based on the Meta Horizon OS will also be able to access Qualcomm chips, such as the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, which was launched with the release of the Meta Quest 3. So far, we have no information on when any of these new headsets will actually go on sale .