I Want My Avatar to Emote While Wearing the Headset — What Do I Actually Buy for Face Tracking?

2026年8月8日

I wrote earlier about body tracking in VR — full-body tracking. One question stayed with me afterwards: fine, the body moves, but what about the face?

When an avatar’s expression moves, the impression of a conversation apparently changes a great deal. The mouth moves; the eyes meet yours. That alone is often described as enough to make it feel like somebody is actually there. This is face tracking.

But I stalled almost immediately when I started looking. The options differ in price by more than ten times — from around ¥13,000 to nearly ¥160,000. And there turned out to be three fundamentally different mechanisms.

So what should you actually buy? Let me sort it from cheapest upward.

Researched as of July 2026. I do not own any of this hardware — please read this as an organized summary of published information. Prices and availability change, so check the retail pages before buying.

If you do not own a headset, or you play on the desktop, the second option is for you — no dedicated hardware required.

Why is this so hard to choose?

The reason was simple. There are three different ways to read a face. They all get called “face tracking", but what you buy, what it costs and how much work it takes are all different.

Routes 2 and 3 share one thing: the captured video is processed on your PC to infer the expression. More on that below.

1. Built into the headset

Meta Quest Pro: excellent, but no longer made

It reads both eyes and mouth. The price was ¥159,500, but production has ended. You would be looking for a used one.

That is a lot to spend purely to move your face, and getting one new is now difficult. As a fresh choice today, it is not realistic.

VIVE Focus Vision: eyes included, mouth sold separately

Eye tracking is in the headset. But the mouth needs a separate device (¥14,900). If you want both, add that to the headset price.

2. Adding it to the headset you own

This is where I felt the most movement right now — keep your headset and add a camera to it. On models like the Quest 3, where the face cushion comes off, a small camera mounts in its place.

PaperTracker: in the ¥13,000 range

A Chinese infrared camera part that attaches to the Quest 3’s face cushion area. Reported at 600–700 CNY (roughly ¥13,000–15,000).

It is cheap because the software is free — Project Babble and EyeTrackVR, both open and published. Selling only the hardware keeps the price down.

Buying it mostly means going outside domestic retailers, and a dedicated storefront is said to still be in preparation. Treat delivery times and what happens if it breaks as different from buying locally.

FocusRay: aimed at the domestic market, but not out yet

As an add-on, FocusRay Extension is listed at ¥17,700 (incl. tax), released 17 October 2026, with the FocusRay Plus bundle at ¥27,500 (incl. tax).

It has not shipped yet. If you are not in a hurry, waiting for this before deciding is a reasonable move.

3. Building it yourself — which turned out to be a local AI story

This was the most interesting part of the research.

A DIY build means wiring an infrared camera and infrared LEDs onto a 3D-printed mount. Parts start at around ¥3,000, and the software is free.

The software is Project Babble (mouth) and EyeTrackVR (eyes). Both are open and free, and almost every add-on product is built on top of them.

And here is the point. These programs take the camera’s video and infer, on your PC, what expression you are making right now. That is machine-learning inference, running on your own machine.

The work is real, though: wiring, printing the mount, aligning it, tuning the software. This route suits people who enjoy the building itself.

If you print the mount yourself you need a 3D printer.

Sorted by budget

The whole thing in price order. Headset cost not included.

Laid out like that, the striking thing is that the most expensive option is currently the hardest to buy. The polished Quest Pro is discontinued, and the domestic add-on has not shipped. What you can definitely get today is a DIY build, or an import.

Check these before buying

• Does it fit your headset? Add-ons are built to a specific shape
• Eyes or mouth? Not everything does both — the VIVE device is mouth only
• Do you need a PC? Add-ons and DIY builds run the processing on a PC. The headset alone does not complete it
• When can you get it? Some options are discontinued and others have not launched
• Does your avatar support it? Moving expressions requires the avatar to be built for it

Wrap-up: if you are not in a hurry, waiting until autumn is an option

• Three ways to read a face — built in, added on, or DIY — differing in price by more than ten times
• The polished Meta Quest Pro is discontinued. Not a realistic new purchase now
• The domestic add-on (FocusRay) ships October 2026. Worth waiting for if you can
• Available right now: DIY (from ¥3,000) or an imported PaperTracker (from ¥13,000)
• Both add-ons and DIY builds infer expressions on your PC — machine learning running continuously on your own machine

Before researching this I assumed moving your face required expensive equipment. What surprised me is that the cheapest route lands exactly on what this blog is always about: running AI on your own hardware.

For anyone who likes building things, the DIY route looks like a genuinely interesting project. If I get the chance, I would like to actually build one and write it up.

Hardware mentioned

Sources

Checked 31 July 2026. Prices, release status and how to obtain these change. Please check the retail pages before buying.