Spatial UX
Passthrough MR
Passthrough MR is mixed reality rendered by compositing the headset's camera feed with virtual content, used by Meta Quest 3, Vision Pro and Android XR devices.
Passthrough introduces new analytics questions: how often users switch between VR and MR modes, which virtual objects users place in real space, and how passthrough quality impacts comfort and session length.
Passthrough-specific comfort signals — camera latency artefacts, colour mismatch, occlusion errors — do not exist in fully virtual VR. Analytics for passthrough experiences therefore extends the standard comfort model with signals that only make sense when the real world is visible around the virtual content.
Why it matters
Passthrough is where mixed reality actually reaches consumers today. Understanding how users move between full VR and passthrough MR, and how passthrough quality affects retention, is what lets studios design experiences that use the medium instead of ignoring it.
Example
A creativity app tracks how often users toggle passthrough during a session. Users who toggle three or more times have 34% higher retention over four weeks — insight that leads the team to promote passthrough-friendly features more prominently in onboarding.