A Japanese Engineer Says He's Making A Face & Eye Tracking Addon For Quest 3

A Japanese engineer says he’s making a face & eye tracking addon for Quest 3, but significant concerns have been raised about the project.

The engineer goes by “Nami”, and says he works for a Japanese car company and studied computer vision at university. He has also enlisted VRChat user bbbbb_himiko to promote the product on social media, and calls their team Vlugin.

Vlugin calls its apparent product EF Tracker, and claims it will be an accessory for Meta Quest 3 that adds both eye tracking and face tracking via three cameras and a series of infrared LEDs. However, there are a number of reasons to be skeptical about EF Tracker.

Firstly, Vlugin as a team was actually formed back in 2023, and at the time was intended as a partnership with Japanese startup diVRse, which sells a prescription lenses insert called VRsatile, compatible with any headset that supports glasses (but more comfortable than glasses). At the time, Vlugin intended its product to be a variant of VRsatile with added eye tracking, called VRsatile Eye C.

But two days ago, Vlugin announced that this partnership has been “terminated”, and that it’s instead building this Quest 3 specific EF Tracker. A machine translation of the announcement reads:

“diVRse Inc. provided their opinion on the current situation of the Vlugin team, and diVRse Inc. expressed their intention to proceed with their own development with a new development partner. In response, the Vlugin team recognized that the directions aimed for by both parties are different and decided to dissolve the cooperation.“

The termination of Vlugin’s partnership with a company that has years of experience in shipping accessories for VR does not exactly inspire confidence, especially given Vlugin only consists of one engineer, and is now only showing renders of the new EF Tracker, not a prototype.

Further, Vlugin seems to have been using open-source eye tracking software without a licence or attribution.

On its website, Vlugin says it “develops hardware and software”. But the lead developer of EyeTrackVR, an open-source project which has been used to successfully mod eye tracking onto headsets like Quest 2 and Bigscreen Beyond, tells UploadVR he recognizes the tracking visualization overlay in the bottom right of Vlugin’s only demonstration video as identical to EyeTrackVR.

The developer, who goes by the handle Prohurtz, says he confronted Vlugin about this in a public reply on X, and that Vlugin claimed it was their “own development”. When Prohurtz pointed out the interface was identical to EyeTrackVR, Vlugin deleted the post, he says.

But even worse, the hardware Vlugin is using may possibly be unsafe for human eyes. Multiple VR experts, including Prohurtz and the lead developer of the visionOS port of ALVR, have noticed that the camera sensors used in EF Tracker look unusually large compared to the kind used in existing VR eye tracking. Prohurtz believes he has pinpointed it to be an off-the-shelf sensor and IR illuminator board used in DIY Arduino and Raspberry Pi projects which he says is “not designed for eye tracking”, and which he says he himself once tested with concerning results.

To allow the sensor to see your eye clearly, Vlugin is using infrared illumination and brightnesses “4-5x as strong” as the hardware EyeTrackVR recommends, Prohurtz says, putting it beyond the recommended eye safety levels for long-term exposure, which he says would result in “discomfort and an increased risk of cataracts due to cornea damage”. Prohurtz says his testing with the board caused “immediate eye dryness and strain”. The EyeTrackVR community has put significant effort into researching and warning about IR emitter safety.

Vlugin isn’t the only team claiming to be building an eye tracking addon for Quest 3, though. A startup called Inseye announced a $160 eye tracking addon last year called Lumi, which uses inexpensive photosensors instead of cameras, which require far less computation, energy, and cost. The company hasn’t provided any updates on its progress since September, though.

Inseye Lumi Is A $160 Eye Tracking Addon For Quest 2 & 3

Inseye plans to release a $160 eye tracking addon for Quest 2 and Quest 3, though there’s no specific timeline.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

And don’t hold out hope for an official eye tracking addon from Meta. The company’s CTO previously shot down the prospect of this for Quest 3, describing it as not “credible”, as well as an official face tracking addon, which he said wouldn’t be useful without eye tracking.

However, HTC managed to release eye tracking and face tracking addons for Vive Focus 3, suggesting Meta could probably pull it off if it really wanted to.

Meta Shoots Down Prospect Of Quest 3 Eye Tracking Add-On

Meta’s CTO shot down the prospect of a Quest 3 eye tracking add-on. Here’s what he said:

UploadVRDavid Heaney

Vlugin isn’t taking preorders for EF Tracker, and hasn’t announced a price or release timeline. Given the concerns around the project, we currently strongly recommend not ordering if it does become available in the future.