Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses are already pretty fashionable, as they look nearly identical to a few of EssilorLuxottica’s best-selling sunglasses, albeit with the inclusion of neatly integrated cameras, speakers, battery and onboard AI driven by a positively tiny Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen1 processor. With the launch of a new pop-up store in Los Angeles today, Meta is hoping to test out whether it can move the needle with broader adoption.
Meta calls the LA pop-up store “experiential retail,” having modeled it after the Meta Lab pop-up at Connect 2024 in October, which allowed event-goers to try on a pair of Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses to capture photos and videos and keep the resultant files, or even buy a customized pair of the $300 glasses right then and there.
Ultimately, the idea with its first publicly available pop-up in LA is to increase word-of-mouth marketing, which Creative Director Matt Jacobson hopes will make its users into the “best salesperson ever.”
Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, Image courtesy Meta, EssilorLuxottica
Adorned with a giant pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses on the outside (with the glasses’ LED privacy light), the flagship pop-up in LA is only going to be around until December 31st, although it won’t be the last.
The company’s next pop-up is planned to hit Phoenix, Arizona in January, which the company calls a “real shop-in-shop,” the exact location of which is still a mystery.
Meta Lab (LA) | Image courtesy Meta
“Can we build a store inside somebody else’s business? Can we drive traffic to it, and can we leverage their marketing as well as ours? By the end of January, we will have tested all three expressions of our experiential first-party retail.”
To boot, the Meta Lab location is doing more than just letting people try on and buy Ray-Ban smartglasses. The company says it will have “regular programming,” which includes stand-up comedy with Desi Banks, a live podcast with Madeline Argy, a ‘paint and sip’ night with Tinashe, a Ray-Ban Meta-focused workshop with Director Drex Lee, and a cooking class with Cassie Yeung.
As pop-ups go, the LA and Phoenix locations may be a limited engagement, but it may also spark more to come.
“We can’t scale a hundred of these, but we can build a few of them at locations around the country, and then fill in if we decide we want to do more first-party retail. This is aspirational, inspirational. They’re not easily scalable in terms of what they look like, but in terms of experience, they are,” Jacobson says.
If you’re in the LA area, you can find the Meta Lab pop-up over at 8600 Melrose Avenue, open from 10:00 am – 7:00 pm PT seven days a week beginning November 8th through December 31st.
Posted holiday hours are 10:00 am – 3:00 pm on Black Friday and Christmas Eve, with the location closed on Thanksgiving, December 3rd, and Christmas Day.
Code discovered in a recent Google Play update indicates the company may soon roll out support for XR headsets on its Android app store, which would mark a decisive shift in the competitive landscape.
As reported by Android Authority, code in version 43.3.32-31 of the Google Play app contains mention of “XR headset,” including a new headset icon that ostensibly indicates whether an app works with the supported device.
Google has technically hosted XR games on Play in the form of Cardboard apps since 2014, which use Android smartphones as ad hoc VR displays—something that was big in kickstarting user interest in the early days of consumer VR, but not so much in the day of standalone headsets like Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro.
The addition of a dedicated section in the Play store and official device support however points to something bigger than Cardboard, or even its now-defunct Google Daydream platform, which the company abandoned in 2019.
So what’s spurred this renewed interest in XR? There are a few things, arguably the largest of which is the Google, Samsung and Qualcomm headset collaboration, which was announced in early 2023. Samsung is building the hardware, Qualcomm the chipset, and Google the Android-based XR operating system.
Although the companies have confirmed the headset will be announced (and possibly launched) by the end of this year, practically nothing is known about the XR collab. Industry rumors maintain Samsung initially delayed the device to better compete with high-end mixed reality headsets, such as Vision Pro.
Apple Vision Pro with Dual Loop Band | Image courtesy Apple
Then there’s the recent report from The Information that claims Google and Samsung are looking to partner on a Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses competitor, which would be materially ‘easier’ to produce than a full-fledged XR headset, since the comparatively cheaper AI-centric smartglasses don’t include displays.
Still, such a device likely wouldn’t need such a close tie-in to the broader Android ecosystem like a potential Vision Pro competitor, which would likely trade on its ability to not only play XR games published on Google Play, but also run standard 2D apps too, like Vision Pro does with its millions of compatible iOS apps.
This follows revelations from earlier this year that Meta and Google held talks in effort to bring Android XR to Quest, however talks apparently stalled due to Google’s terms being too restrictive for the liking of Meta. In the meantime, Meta has been making overtures to Android developers to bring their apps directly to Quest in a bid to further flesh out Quest as a general computing platform.
Nintendo has published a new patent that could point to its next iteration of Labo VR for its long-awaited Switch successor.
While news of the company’s next Switch console is expected “within this fiscal year,” Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa said in May, rumors however suggest the company has delayed release to early 2025, which has only fueled speculation among Nintendo acolytes hoping for what promises to be a bigger, better Switch.
Now, Nintendo has published a patent (Japanese) that appears to be a VR add-on similar to its Labo VR kit first released in 2019, which allowed users to essentially ‘build’ a VR display add-on for use in experimental mini-games, and for playing a handful of traditional Switch titles in 3D.
Images courtesy Nintendo, Japanese Patent Office
Called an “auxiliary device and stereoscopic image display system,” the patent describes a “portable main unit that displays a stereoscopic image, and an auxiliary equipment that assists the user in viewing the stereoscopic image.”
Unlike Labo VR, which was primarily made of cardboard and featured a loose slot to house Switch, the patent shows off a more refined clip-in mechanism that more securely cradles the console. Images also show the console with controllers attached, with patent literature describing how a user holds it in the their left and right hands.
Some images show the device without controllers, however no such headstrap configuration is specified—essentially positioning it to work like Nintendo’s 2019 Labo VR, albeit without mention of the optional ‘Toy-Con’ game accessories offered at release.
Image courtesy Nintendo
So, not a VR headset as such, but an encouraging development considering Nintendo hasn’t fully invested in XR tech with a standalone headset release, like Meta Quest 3 or its new Quest 3S, which was launched earlier this month starting at $300.
Revisiting Labo VR with a follow-up device for its new Switch doesn’t seem that far-fetched though, as the kit widely sold out at retailers at launch, and used Switch in innovative, patently Nintendo ways.
Still, we’re taking this (and any patent) with a grain of salt. A mantra worth remembering: every product has a patent, but not every patent has a product.
Canon today announced a more affordable lens option designed for social media creators and videographers interested in VR and 3D content creation.
Back in June, Canon announced its RF-S3.9mm F3.5 STM Dual Fisheye lens, which was designed to allow its line of cameras to take spatial video and photos—priced at $1,099.00.
Now the company is widening its line of dual lens optics with an even more affordable VR lens system with the introduction of RF-S7.8mm F4 STM DUAL lens, which is going on sale this November for $449.99.
Image courtesy Canon U.S.A., Inc.
As the name suggests, the lens offers a 7.8mm focal length, as well as a 60-degree angle of view. Like the previously released Dual Fisheye lens, the new lens is also compatible with Canon’s latest cameras that support RF mounts, which includes EOS R, R5, R6, RP, and the R7.
While admittedly offering a lower field-of-view (FOV) than the 144-degree FOV of its bigger brother, it’s also less than half the price.
Image courtesy Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Previewed at Apple’s 2024 WWDC, Canon intends to use the new lens to meet the growing demand for accessible spatial video creation.
Notably, the new RF-S7.8mm F4 STM DUAL lens is said to operate like a traditional 2D RF lens, enabling easy setup for newcomers, and allowing anyone with its latest RF mount cameras to create immersive content for headsets like Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3.
According to Hiroto Kato, Canon’s vice president of Imaging Products & Solutions, the RF-S7.8mm F4 STM DUAL lens is “an exciting step” in making 3D content creation accessible.
“With the RF-S7.8mm F4 STM DUAL lens, Canon is not only providing a new visual tool but also enhancing the way creators communicate using emerging VR, spatial and 3D technologies,” said Kato says. “This lens allows users to capture immersive content, bridging the gap between traditional content creation and the latest in VR and Spatial imagery. It’s an exciting step forward in making high-quality 3D content more approachable for everyone.”
The new dual lens is scheduled for release in November 2024, priced at $449.99. Check out the specs below:
Meta continues its reign as the XR industry’s dominant player, with its most recent moves signaling a shift into a new era for the company—and thus the industry at large. This year saw the introduction of the Meta Orion AR glasses prototype and the Quest 3S headset—two pieces of hardware that are not only crucial to Meta’s future but will be pivotal in shaping the industry’s direction as a whole.
Meta Orion AR Glasses Are a Flag in the Ground
Image courtesy Meta
The News
One of Meta’s most significant announcements this year was the unveiling of the Meta Orion AR glasses prototype. Meta has long been signaling its ambitions in the AR space, and the Meta Orion prototype represents a major step toward that vision. With a compact form-factor and an impressive 70-degree field of view, Meta is aiming to push the boundaries of what AR hardware can achieve.
Why It Matters
Meta’s Orion AR glasses stand as a benchmark for the state-of-the-art in AR glasses today. Unlike similarly sized AR devices—which suffer from a narrow field-of-view that make content appear constrained—Meta Orion’s 70-degree FoV is just scraping the boundary of ‘wide enough to be useful’. Achieving a compact form-factor and a wide field-of-view in the same package is crucial for making AR feel more seamless and practical in daily use.
It will be years yet before Meta ships something like Orion, but it’s an intentional ‘flag in the ground’ moment for the company.
Quest 3S Speeds the Transition Away from Quest 2
Image courtesy Meta
The News
Meta launched Quest 3S, a new addition to the Quest lineup that really should have launched alongside Quest 3 in the first place. Positioned as a more budget-friendly alternative to the flagship Quest 3, the Quest 3S comes with a lower price point but still offers significant improvements in performance and mixed reality capabilities compared to older devices like the Quest 2.
Why It Matters
In its marketing, Meta has been hyping mixed reality for years at this point. But the large population of Quest 2 headsets (which really aren’t great for MR) have undercut the company’s push into MR.
The Quest 3S is finally a new headset from Meta that’s comparable to what Quest 2 was in terms of affordability, while including reasonably good MR capabilities too.
With the Quest 2 becoming increasingly outdated, users and developers alike have been waiting for hardware that can keep up with more demanding VR experiences. The Quest 3S hits the sweet spot for many casual users, offering a balance between affordability and performance.
And finally Meta has a flagship game for its Quest 3 & Quest 3S hardware. Batman: Arkham Shadow (which is exclusive to these newer headsets), is just the thing to get VR gamers that are hanging on to Quest 2 to make the leap to newer hardware.
Ironically, the flagship game for these new “mixed reality” headsets (as Meta now usually refers to them) is a pure VR game. Maybe with the next headset launch the company can properly time a flagship MR app with its launch.
More Immersive and Useful Mixed Reality Apps
Demeo Mixed Reality mode | Image courtesy Meta
The News
This year Meta revealed that it will now grant developers access to camera data for creating mixed reality (MR) content. This change opens up new possibilities for how MR experiences are built and how users can interact with their environments through these experiences.
Why It Matters
For years Meta has held out on giving developers direct access to the headset’s cameras. That made it harder for developers to build interesting MR applications that properly integrate and interact with the world around the user.
In addition to Quest 3S helping to grow the population of Quest headsets with decent MR capabilities, this change also makes building MR applications a more attractive proposition for developers.
Ostensibly Meta had originally blocked direct camera access to preserve user privacy and prevent potential abuse by bad actors. Reversing that decision is risky; another privacy scandal is the last thing Meta wants its headsets to be known for.
New Tools for Developers to Bring ‘Spatial Computing’ to Quest
Image courtesy Meta
The News
This year Meta also introduced new tools to make it easier for developers to port both flat-screen and spatial computing applications to Quest devices. These tools are designed to streamline the development process, enabling developers to create more immersive XR content without requiring a steep learning curve.
Why It Matters
Meta’s headsets are great for gaming, but it wants them to be great at ‘spatial computing’ too. But getting developers to bring traditional apps to its platform has been a major hurdle for the company.
One of the biggest challenges traditional app developers face is moving from a flat screen modality to something that inherently exists in 3D. This generally requires a completely different set of tools that’s much more in the realm of game development than app development.
Meta’s new tools aim to simplify this process, allowing developers who are familiar with building flat-screen applications to bring their apps to the Horizon platform with minimal friction. This opens up the Quest platform to a wider range of applications, from 2D games and productivity tools to more immersive spatial experiences.
But Meta still faces an uphill battle with getting a critical mass of everyday apps onto its headset. The company has openly said it would love to bring the Play store (and all of its apps) to the headset, but it seems Google isn’t down to play ball. That’s likely because it’s busy working on its own XR strategy and doesn’t want to give Meta an upper hand.
New Headsets on the Horizon
Image courtesy Meta
The News
In a surprising move this year, Meta announced that it was planning to open up the Horizon OS to select partners who will make their own headsets that run the operating system.
Why it Matters
While Meta has made solid general-purpose headsets, the company believes the time is right for more specialized options. But rather than build those options itself, the company is enlisting help from companies that are already familiar with building hardware for someone else’s software.
While this could bring a wider range of headsets to market which retain access to Meta’s leading platform of content, the move shares a striking resemblance to Microsoft’s ill-fated VR play which enlisted major computer OEMs to build a round of VR headsets and then quickly lose interest.
Because Meta owns the Horizon platform, and subsidizes the cost of its own headsets, it’s difficult to understand how announced partners like Asus and Lenovo could hope to build a headset that’s meaningfully better than what Meta is already offering and compete with Meta on price. This has clearly been a struggle for HTC Vive which doesn’t have the money to burn to subsidize its hardware like Meta.
Meta’s ability to burn billions in its pursuit of owning the XR space (or the “next computing platform” as Zuckerberg often calls it) means the company is the one primarily steering the ship. The moves Meta made this year are the beginning of a new era for the company (while most of the industry remains in tow).
While Apple’s entry into the space has already had notable influence on Meta’s XR trajectory, it won’t be until both companies are competing in the same price-class (and for the same users) that Meta will have to truly fight to maintain control of XR’s near-term future.
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth revealed last week a mysterious wide field-of-view (FOV) headset prototyped in the Redmond, Washington-based Reality Labs offices. Bosworth now reveals the research prototype had something close to a 210-degree FOV, however wide FOV displays are a critical tradeoff the company isn’t ready to make.
And if you were hoping this was the wide FOV Quest yet to come, you’ll probably be disappointed. Bosworth revealed in a recent Instagram Q&A the device is actually a mixed reality headset, however he tempered expectations by calling the prototype “very, very, very low resolution,” which notably featured “giant gaps in the display where there was no image at all.”
Bosworth intimated Meta won’t be chasing after such a wide FOV because there are simply too many conflicting tradeoffs.
“I know how much ya’ll love field-of-view and want more. I’m with you. I like it. I get it, I do. The tradeoffs are so bad. The tradeoffs on weight, form factor, compute, thermals… it’s all bad,” Bosworth said in the Q&A.
Image courtesy Andrew Bosworth
Enthusiast-grade, wide FOV PC VR headsets like Pimax Crystal Light ($699), Pimax Crystal Super QLED ($1,799), and Somnium VR1 (€1,900/$2,050) don’t need to worry about those things as much, as they rely on dedicated GPUs and typically don’t need to fit into the sort of tight compute and power envelopes as Quest. And as we know, Meta doesn’t produce PC VR-only headsets anymore either.
Bosworth boils it down to price, since producing a significantly larger FOV in a standalone beyond the typical 110-degree horizontal increases the costs of all associated components.
“Field-of-view is one of the most expensive things you can add to a headset. And by definition, and all that cost—that quadratic cost—is going to the least important pixels,” Bosworth said, referring the display’s periphery.
Even so, Meta doesn’t seem ready to revisit higher price points just yet—at least not after retiring Quest Pro, which released only two years ago for an eye-watering $1,500 before being reduced to $1,000 less than a year after launch. In the near-term, the company is pinning its hopes on the most affordable mixed reality standalone yet, Quest 3S.
“It’s a really tough trade to embrace. We care about field-of-view, and that’s why we do this research. We look at different ways to approach it, and attack it, and make it cheaper […] and more affordable, and not make it so expensive,” Bosworth said.
Summing up the subject on wide FOV headsets, Bosworth maintains “there is a practical reason that we end up in the space that we do.”
The prototype was developed by the company’s Display Systems Research (DSR) team led by Doug Lanman, who is also known for his work on varifocal prototypes. In 2020, DSR said its then-latest varifocal prototype, which featured static varifocal displays and folded optics, was “almost ready for primetime.” The team also showed off display prototypes capable of higher display ranges, providing better contrast for more immersive visuals. None of those technologies have made it out of the lab yet.
Instead, Meta appears to be continuing its march to reach the masses with mixed reality, acting as the lower-cost foil to Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro—an emerging XR competition with battle lines that are still unclear.
The Washington Commanders’ offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury is all-in on VR training, something the team’s star quarterback Jayden Daniels credits for accelerating his development, the New York Times reports.
A former quarterback for Texas Tech himself, the intense realism was clear to Kingsbury from the snap.
“The first time I put [the VR headset] on, I backed into the wall,” Kingsbury told NYT. “It felt like the [pass] rush was coming.”
Daniels is a big driver behind the Commanders’ adoption of the app, which was initially developed by German company Cognilize for top flight soccer players. Daniels says he owes his rapid progress to his Vr training, having used the app during his Heisman Trophy-winning 2023 season quarterbacking at LSU, and now leading the Commanders to a 5-2 record.
Essentially, Cognilize’s app gives players like Daniels to the ability do mental reps at significantly lower physical strain than training on the field, allowing him to rush through plays at the highest speed to better hone his ability to read defenses.
Daniels explained how it work on the ‘All Facts No Brakes’ show with Keyshawn Johnson back in May:
“They load in the stadium you’re playing in, and it looks exactly like the stadium. And it’s moving faster than a human being would be moving. I’ll get in there, and say, they’ll probably give me 7 seconds to know the play. Pre-snap, I get to see the coverage and know where I’m going with the football, all before the play clock runs out.” That, and Kingsbury’s voice directs the VR sessions, giving Daniels real insight into virtual plays.
“It’s as real as game reps,” Kingsbury explained, adding that the VR app has become a major component of their weekly process. To boot, Daniels works with the app every morning, comparing it to a “flight simulator for QBs.”
“It’s a unique technology, and it’s definitely for the quarterbacks,” Kingsbury said. “I think it is more effective than them just watching the film. They’re going through their reads, they’re going through their progressions, they’re seeing it.”
Despite suffering a rib injury during the recent 40-7 blowout victory against the Carolina Panthers, raising concerns about Daniels’ availability for the remainder of the season, the news actually looks good. Daniels may only miss out on the upcoming game against the Chicago Bears—giving him more time to get mental reps in at his own speed in VR and recover from the injury without stopping training regime altogether.
I was asked recently for my thoughts on Meta’s Orion AR glasses, specifically whether or not such glasses stand a chance of becoming as big as (or replacing) the smartphones in the future.
I was asked for my thoughts recently for a Lifewire article about Meta’s Orion AR glasses and the future they may or may not point at. Only a small snippet of my overall response was used, and in a way that supported the article’s (reasonably) skeptical take on the future of AR glasses. However, considering my position is that I do indeed think AR glasses are the inevitable future of the smartphone—becoming the keystone of our daily digital lives—I think it’s worth sharing my full response on the record.
Q: Everyone owning smartphones is a once-ever glitch of the market, because they are subsidized, and replaced cellphones, which everyone had. Do you think most people will actually buy AR glasses?
Ben: I do believe, like the world’s largest tech companies (Meta, Apple, Google, etc) that AR glasses are the inevitable evolution of the smartphone over the long term. The ‘easy sell’ (if all the other pieces can be worked out) is to imagine if you could do everything you can do on your phone today, except on a magic screen that floats in front of you and can scale to any size you need at any time. So while you’re walking down the street it can be a little window showing you a message, but when you get home it can become a 100 foot cinema screen on your wall.
If you can build a device that can do this (and there’s reason to believe we can’t), then you’ve not only replaced your smartphone… but also replaced your TV. Think about all the other screens in your life beyond your phone and TV: your laptop screen, your desktop monitor, your smartwatch… all of these could be replaced with virtual screens that come from a single device that’s always with you. You can’t fit a 65″ 4K TV in your pocket… but if you’ve got glasses that can replicate that display, you can take it with you literally anywhere you go.
If you’ve had a chance to use Apple Vision Pro, you can clearly see that this idea is more than just a dream. The virtual screens created by Vision Pro are incredibly high quality. For most people, a virtual TV window in Vision Pro is higher quality than any TV they’re likely to own (not to mention it also works better than any 3DTV or 3D movie theater in existence because using one display for each eye creates a much better 3D image than the glasses you wear for a 3DTV or movie).
That’s all true, but Vision Pro is still huge! The tech industry’s current challenge is figuring out how to put the features, specs, and quality of Vision Pro into a pair of glasses that’s the size of Orion. It’s a massive technical challenge that will require multiple breakthroughs.
Again this is the long term vision—at least 10 years out. Orion represents a real step toward making this a reality, but it’s still very limited compared to the experience you get from a bulky headset like Vision Pro. Orion itself is not good enough to be the smartphone replacement, but future direction is clear.
So for those reasons, yes, I think people will buy AR glasses, but not until they provide better value than their smartphones. And that’s going to take another decade at least.
Q: You can’t type, the battery will never be as good as a bigger phone, and you have to wear glasses. Are [AR glasses] a dead end? Why or why not?
Ben: Typing in XR hasn’t been fully cracked, but there’s no reason to think it won’t ever be. This would be similar to thinking that a software keyboard on a smartphone could never be as good as a physical keyboard like on a Blackberry… but that couldn’t have been more thoroughly disproven.
There’s no reason to think that the battery life could never match a phone. Meta is already working on this challenge with Orion which uses a wireless ‘compute puck’ (containing a large battery and processor) which offloads the heaviest workload of the glasses into this much larger device. That means the glasses can be fairly low power, while doing most of the computing on the compute puck before streaming it to be displayed on the glasses. Because this compute puck doesn’t need to come out of your pocket constantly like a smartphone (and it doesn’t need a screen, cameras, etc), it could actually have a larger battery than the average smartphone.
Q: Why is Zuckerberg and Meta so desperate for something that replaces Android and iOS phones?
Ben: Meta has always been beholden to Google and Apple because those companies control the platforms that Meta relies on to reach its audience. Meta has to follow their rules.
Meta’s entire journey into immersive tech—which began in 2014 with the acquisition of the VR startup Oculus—was entirely driven by Zuckerberg wanting to beat Google and Apple to the “next computing platform” so he wouldn’t be stuck under their thumb. I gave a breakdown of this situation in an article earlier this year which sums up more than a decade of Zuckerberg’s attempts to outmaneuver Apple & Google in immersive tech.
In an interview with The Verge, Meta CTO and Reality Labs chief Andrew Bosworth confirmed a number of projects previously subject to speculation, detailed the company’s strategic shift toward AI, and confirmed plans to deepen its partnership with Ray-Ban parent EssilorLuxottica.
Meta reorganized Reality Labs earlier this year to better focus on wearables, such as Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses and AI-driven wearable tech, like the newer version of its wrist-worn controller revealed last month alongside Meta’s Orion AR glasses prototype.
Meta’s Orion AR Glasses Prototype | Image courtesy Meta
To get there though, Bosworth outlined the company’s multi-phase process for product development. In a nutshell: a “pre-discovery” team prototypes novel concepts. Some ideas move to the “discovery” phase for feasibility and industrial design evaluation. Prototyping follows with more extensive executive involvement, and products that pass engineering validation may go to market.
In the interview, Bosworth confirmed a number of claims made in recent reports, including rumors that Meta is exploring earbuds with cameras, similar to what we’ve heard is currently going on at Apple, and a pair of mixed reality goggles which recently entered the discovery phase, described as “steampunk-like.”
Although Bosworth didn’t confirm this, a previous report from The Information maintained those mixed reality goggles could arrive as soon as 2027—assuming they successfully pass both prototyping and engineering validation phases.
Bosworth also confirmed a previous report that Meta has canceled a high-end Quest headset, codenamed La Jolla, which was initially expected to become the Quest Pro 2. The cancellation of La Jolla was likely due to tepid consumer responses to high-priced headsets like the Quest Pro and Apple Vision Pro.
Meta Quest Pro | Image courtesy Meta
It also seems reports were correct surrounding Meta’s plans to take a noncontrolling stake in EssilorLuxottica, the company behind Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. Meta is seeking volume while the eyewear giant seeks margins. “That’s the tension, and we found a good solution to it, so we’re pretty excited about it,” Bosworth told The Verge.
Meanwhile, Meta is increasingly focused on AI-powered devices, aiming not to be outpaced by competitors like Apple. To boot, Meta is now developing multiple products simultaneously, a marked shift from its early days.
“We definitely don’t want to be outflanked by someone who came up with some clever, integrated wearable that we hadn’t thought about,” Bosworth says. “If there’s a part of your body that could potentially host a wearable that could do AI, there’s a good chance we’ve had a team run that down.”
This comes as Meta has just released Quest 3S, its new $300 mixed reality headset that undoubtedly hopes to replicate Quest 2’s success by packing in Quest 3’s chipset and full-color mixed reality capabilities alongside last-gen displays.
Shiftall has launched pre-orders for its newly unveiled MeganeX superlight 8K, a slim and light, high-resolution OLED PC VR headset tracked by SteamVR base stations.
Boasting a flip-up design, MeganeX Superlight 8K is hoping to impress with its 1.35-inch micro OLED displays, offering a resolution of 3,552 × 3,840 per-eye and 90 Hz refresh rate. Supporting 10-bit color depth, the PC VR headset also offers HDR support through SteamVR.
Image courtesy Shiftall
Weighing in at 185g (without headstrap), the headset also features proprietary pancake lenses built by Panasonic and motorized interpupillary distance (IPD) supporting users from 58 to 72 mm, along with focus adjustment from 0D to -7D. Notably missing is any mention of field-of-view. We’ve reached out to Shiftall for clarification on that spec, and will update when/if we hear back.
It includes built-in dual microphones with beamforming and features 6DOF head tracking thanks to the inclusion of SteamVR tracking via base stations (version 1.0 or 2.0 required). An add-on prescription lens option will be announced in the future.
Shiftall MeganeX superlight 8K in flipped-up position | Image courtesy Shiftall
While MeganeX superlight 8K doesn’t feature any sort of onboard audio, it does include a USB Type-C expansion port for headphones.
Only available in Japan and the US for now, Meganex superlight 8K is hoping to resonate with the same sort of PC VR crowd who gravitated towards Bigscreen Beyond, which notably packs in lower-resolution micro OLED displays (2,560 × 2,560 pixels per-eye) at nearly half the price, and at a lower weight (127g).
The unassuming early access Quest game I Am Cat has taken off in a matter of months, spreading virally through social media with videos of its feline antics. We reached out to the developer New Folder Games to learn more about its recipe for success.
I Am Cat, developed by New Folder Games, is a Quest game that’s found significant success despite still being in Early Access (formerly ‘App Lab’). After just a year in development and less than five months of availability in Early Access, the $15 game has amassed nearly 40,000 user reviews with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars.
That puts it far ahead—in both number of ratings and review score—of big budget releases like Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR (3.9K reviews, 4.3 score), Resident Evil 4 VR (12K reviews, 4.7 score), Asgard’s Wrath II (4.8K reviews, 4.2 score), and plenty more.
The game’s rapid growth is seemingly thanks to strong viral momentum driven by its novel and somewhat comedic role-play gameplay. You can easily find individual videos of the game with millions or tens of millions of views on platforms like YouTube and TikTok. The game is also another example of the growing trend (and apparent demand) for VR games with arm-based locomotion.
I Am Cat isn’t the studio’s only successful project. Its two other notable games, both released within months of I Am Cat, have also found reasonably strong traction and high scores.
I Am Security (also in Early Access) boasts 12K reviews and a score of 4.8 out of 5, while Titans Clinic has a respectable 5K reviews and a score of 4.8.
Having one highly successful and two reasonably successful Quest games released in the same year is a strong argument that I Am Cat’s allure is more than just a fluke—this studio has a clear insight into what a chunk of Quest users are looking for and has created a repeatable strategy for delivering it.
But it took a lot of experimentation to get there. If there’s one thing that clearly defines New Folder Games up to this point, it’s the studio’s ability to rapidly experiment. The aforementioned titles are just three of nine (yes nine) Quest games the studio has released in the last year… many in the same month:
Most of the games from the studio are built around fairly ‘wacky’ premises that run counter to what you might think VR gamers would be looking for. But it seems I Am Cat—the only one of the bunch that has players playing from an explicitly non-human perspective—is the one that’s resonated the most. Perhaps because players are familiar with how cats behave, but are uniquely intrigued by the opportunity to see and interact with the world through their eyes—in a comedic, slapstick kind of way, anyway.
So how did New Folder Games get here and where is it headed?
The studio tells Road to VR that New Folder Games was founded in Cyprus in 2019 and employs around 15 people, many working remotely.
“The idea for I Am Cat came from our love for pets, especially cats—each team member owns a cat. During a call, one of our team members said, ‘What if I were a cat in VR? And instead of a hand, it would be a paw’—and boom, everything came together,” the studio says.
Development on I Am Cat started in Q1 2023. Just about a year later, the game was launched in Early Access. Five months after the launch, the game has amassed more reviews than the vast majority of other Quest titles.
“We believe the key to I Am Cat’s popularity is people’s love for pets, particularly cats. Additionally, there aren’t many fun VR games, which makes it stand out,” the studio said matter-of-factly.
As for the future of the game? The studio plans to add more content ahead of its full launch at the end of 2024.
“We plan to release the full game around December 2024, with additional locations, mechanics, quests, and characters. We will continue to support the game with new content and some exciting stuff. Our vision for the 1.0 release is a highly polished game packed with rich content for players to enjoy.”
Right now I Am Cat is only available on Quest, but the studio says it plans to release the game on Steam, PSVR 2, and Vision Pro as well.
Although I Am Cat seems to be the studio’s highest priority, the subsequently launched I Am Security is also gaining traction and the studio says it’s continuing development on that game, in addition to work on a “new secret project.”
While those two titles and the unannounced project have the studio’s attention for now, New Folder Games tells Road to VR we may not have seen the last of its rapid prototyping strategy.
“Right now, almost everyone is working on the I Am Cat title. However, there’s still a chance we might split up [into groups] and release another nine titles in one year!” the studio says.
Apple today launched a new immersive short film called Submerged for free on Vision Pro, letting users explore a harrowing tale set in a WWII-era submarine. The company also announced its next slate of immersive content, including an NBA basketball documentary, a music video from The Weeknd, immersive concerts and new episodes of Adventure.
Starting today, Submerged will be available on Apple TV for Vision Pro for users across Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, the UK and the US.
As Apple’s first scripted short film for Vision Pro, the company says the “adrenaline-pumping thrill ride” will put viewers in the center of the action thanks to its stereoscopic 180-degree 8K resolution video and spatial audio.
Image courtesy Apple
Shot on location in Prague, Brussels, and Malta over the course of three weeks, Submerged was a pretty involved production, having been filmed using a full-scale 23-ton submarine set made with real steel, brass, and metal that was modeled after WWII-era vessels.
“Significant portions of the set were built to withstand being fully submerged, and featured practical camera traps and special effects that were uniquely rigged to expose Apple Immersive Video cameras to sparks, steam, water, and fire without breaking viewers’ sense of immersion,” Apple says. “Cast members who might appear out of frame or focus in a 2D feature were meticulously scripted, and participated in extensive stunt rehearsals, including freedive training in dive tanks and open water, to maintain continuity and realism.”
Apple also showed off a five-minute behind-the-scenes video of Submerged, detailing just how the film was captured in such a confined space.
The company also revealed new episodes, films, series, and concerts captured in its Apple Immersive Video, that are slated to debut on Apple Vision Pro for free in the US later this year, with global availability to follow.
2024 NBA All-Star Weekend (October 17th)
Image courtesy Apple
Basketball fans will enjoy an immersive short film of the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend, featuring the Rising Stars, the Slam Dunk contest, the first-ever NBA vs. WNBA 3-Point Challenge, “Stephen vs. Sabrina,” and highlights from the All-Star Game.
Immersive music video – The Weeknd (next month)
Image courtesy Apple
Apple and The Weeknd will launch a breathtaking immersive music experience celebrating a brand-new song from the seven-time diamond-certified artist’s highly anticipated new album, Hurry Up Tomorrow.
Concert for One (later this year)
Image courtesy Apple
A new concert series, fans will experience intimate performances from the world’s biggest artists, beginning with a special set from the award-winning British singer-songwriter RAYE.
New Episodes of Adventure (later this year)
Image courtesy Apple
Following pioneering athletes as they take on awe-inspiring challenges. In the third episode, “Ice Dive,” available this December, viewers are invited to swim alongside freediver Ant Williams while he attempts to best his record for the longest distance under ice with just a single breath. Early next year, viewers can experience the shores of Majorca, Spain, where world-class sport climber Kai Lightner tackles his biggest challenge yet: free-solo climbing over the secluded and rocky coves, where one slip will send him into the raging sea.
Elevated Int. Debut (October 10th)
Image courtesy Apple
The first episode of this aerial travel series premieres internationally. In the first episode, “Hawai’i,” viewers will fly above volcanoes, climb up and over waterfalls, and discover untold natural wonders across the world’s longest island chain. In the second episode, “Maine,” available later this year, viewers will experience a crisp autumn in New England, with a stunning journey along winding coastlines and above breathtakingly beautiful rivers.
Sightful, the hardware startup working to carve out a new ‘headless AR laptop’ niche, has cancelled plans for its $1,900 Spacetop G1.
Unveiled back in May, Spacetop G1 was set to be the company’s first commercially available product following the early access release of its first Spacetop, which delivered a somewhat bulgy laptop form factor tethered to a pair of XREAL AR glasses.
Now, the company tells CNETit’s cancelling Spacetop G1 altogether, and that pre-order customers will be are offered refunds for their $100 deposits.
Image courtesy Sightful
Sightful says this comes down to difficulties competing with Microsoft’s own neural processing units (NPU), which are integrated into its latest generation of Surface laptops, as well as the usual cadre of partner OEMs, such as Lenovo, Dell, Asus, and HP. Those NPU-integrated laptops promise to improve processing power and battery efficiency when running AR applications.
Previously targeting an October 2024 launch, Spacetop G1 was set to use its own Android-based SpaceOS, running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon QCS8550 chipset, and exclusively tethered to the supplied XREAL Air 2 Ultra glasses.
Sightful, which secured $61 million in funding to date, now says its shifting focus to a software product for Windows laptops, enabling a similar AR experience, which will run Windows apps and integrate with Microsoft’s CoPilot AI features.
The company says its software will be available in early 2025, initially compatible with Xreal AR glasses via USB-C. More AR glasses could be added, however Sightful hasn’t shared any specific plans.
Furthermore, Sightful says Mac support will arrive post-launch, and there may also be the potential to expand beyond laptops, such as TVs and phones, however it hasn’t provided any specific timeline yet.
Samsung and Google announced in early 2023 that, along with Qualcomm, they’d be releasing an “XR platform” based on Android, which could also see the release of a high-end mixed reality headset. While we still haven’t heard exactly what that XR partnership will entail, a new report from The Informationmaintains Samsung and Google are also working on smartglasses positioned to potentially compete with Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses.
The report, citing insider sources, alleges Google staffers pitched the idea earlier this year of creating smartglasses with Samsung, which would ostensibly manufacture and market the device to include Google’s own AI efforts.
It was said Google created several smartglasses prototypes in a bid to interest manufacturing partners, such as Samsung.
Google founder Sergey Brin wearing Google Glass (2013) | Image courtesy Google
One such prototype, which The Information reports is code-named ‘Betty’, had a monocular display—conceptually similar to the now discontinued Google Glass. Two other prototypes, code-named ‘Barry’ and ‘Mary’, were said to include stereo displays.
Notably, Meta’s Ray-Ban smartglasses don’t include any displays, relying primarily on voice commands and touch input for things like listening to music, taking video and photos with its on-board cameras, and doing casual AI web searches.
The forthcoming smartglasses collab is allegedly the result of meetings with Samsung executives early this year, Googlers such as Juston Payne, director of product management, and Shahram Izadi, vice president of AR.
Meta’s Orion AR Glasses Prototype | Image courtesy Meta
There, it was emphasized that comparatively lighter smartglasses were more feasible than pushing for full AR glasses, such as Meta’s Orion AR prototype unveiled at Connect 2024 this past month.
In short, smartglasses with a display could provide the user basic content, such as text and directions, in a relatively small field of view. Full AR glasses would provide a more immersive, large field of view with content such as 3D objects and 2D windows that are anchored inside your real-world environment. Learn more about the difference between AR and smartglasses in our primer.
Whatever the case, we’re sure to learn more soon, as Samsung/Google/Qualcomm confirmed at Samsung Unpacked in July their Android XR platform will be revealed by the end of 2024, which may include launch details surrounding forthcoming XR hardware.
Meta’s biggest reveal at last week’s Connect conference was definitely the Orion prototype AR glasses, which the company says it’s been working on for nearly five years. It’s a big deal not only because of how compact it is, but because Meta says it wants to eventually turn the prototype into a consumer product.
You may have caught our high-level coverage of the Orion headset here, but our friend Norman Chan from Tested got to sit down with Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth to try out the glasses and learn about the Orion project. In typical form, he digs deep into the intriguing technical details of the headset. You can check out his full video below, or scroll further down to get a summary of the technical details Chan learned from his demo and conversation:
Although Orion isn’t ready for mass production, Meta says it’s planning to build around 1,000 units for internal testing. At a purported cost of $10,000 for each prototype, that’s a cool $10 million worth of hardware the company will be shelling out to get enough devices that it can do testing and development at a reasonable scale.
The Orion glasses weigh just 98 grams, which is right under the 100 grams threshold that Meta believes is important for making something that actually looks and feels like glasses rather than goggles. For comparison, the classic Ray-Ban Aviator sunglasses weigh around 30 grams, and Meta’s own Ray-Ban smartglasses weigh around 50 grams. So the Orion AR glasses might be reasonably called glasses, but they’re still chunky bois.
Still, 100 grams is incredibly lightweight if you consider that Orion is packing most of the same fundamental capabilities as Meta’s own Quest 3 headset, which is more than five times heavier at 515 grams.
In addition to the novel silicon carbide lenses we heard about, which help the glasses reach a large (for their size) 70° diagonal field-of-view, Orion also employs MicroLED projectors which are not only tiny, but super bright. Meta says they can output hundreds of thousands of nits of brightness. It’s essential to start with such a bright light source because it’s a complex optical path that loses lots of light along the way. By the time it reaches your eyes, you’ll be seeing just 300–400 nits.
That’s a bit brighter than your average VR headset, but still a long way from bright enough to use outside on a bright day. You’d need around 3,000 nits for reasonable outdoor usability. That means Meta will need to find a brighter light source, or reduce inefficiency in the optical path, if it wants Orion to be something people will wear outside of their homes.
As for resolution, Chan says the main Orion demo has a resolution of 13 pixels-per-degree, which is a bit of a surprise. Because AR glasses often have a smaller field-of-view than their VR counterparts, usually they get an advantage on PPD because the available pixels are spread over a smaller area. But even with a 70° field-of-view, Orion has only about half of the PPD of Quest 3 (25PPD).
However, Meta was apparently also demoing a similar Orion prototype that was 26 PPD, but that came at the cost of image brightness. The company told Chan that its goal is to reach a resolution of 30 PPD by the time Orion becomes a proper product. That’s still far from a ‘retina’ resolution of 60 PPD, but should be enough to make the headset useful for text-based work.
One of the most interesting details from Chan’s interview was the way Orion glasses implement eye-tracking.
Like other headsets, the technique involves illuminating the eye with a series of infrared LEDs, then point a camera at the eye to reverse-engineer the position of the eye based on the visible reflection of the IR LEDs. Usually the IR LEDs are placed in a ring around the lens, but Chan noted that Orion places absolutely tiny LEDs directly in the user’s field-of-view—right on the lens.
In order to make it all invisible to the wearer, the wires that power the LEDs are arranged in a nearly randomized pattern that you could easily mistake as a bit of hair on the lens.
Image courtesy Meta
A random pattern is less eye-catching than a clearly defined pattern (the basis of many optical illusions). Between the random pattern, minuscule thinness of the wires, and nearness to the eye, Chan said it was all but invisible when looking through the lens.
It was also mentioned that the ‘compute puck’, which offloads much of the processing work from the glasses, uses a custom Wi-Fi 6 protocol to communicate, with a range of 10 or so feet.
The custom protocol purportedly focuses on ‘pulsing’ data from the puck (rather than continuously streaming it) to reduce both heat production and power consumption. We can imagine this being a packet-like approach where instead of communicating constantly from the puck to the glasses, outgoing information is gathered over the course of a discrete time period before being packaged and transmitted.
While the puck is plenty large and is said to be capable of “all day” battery life, the glasses themselves can currently run for up to three hours—essentially the same battery life you’d expect from a standalone VR headset.
Compared to research prototypes shown by Meta in the past, Orion isn’t just made to give people a look at the experience the company wants to eventually deliver. Orion is more of a preview of a product that Meta is actively building.
The Immersed IRL event, held yesterday in Austin, Texas was the company’s big moment to showcase its upcoming headset and build confidence that it was on track to deliver on the promise of an ambitious headset. But a botched demo may have done the opposite.
Guest Article by Eric Liga
Eric Liga is Chief Scientist at Net Edge VR, a Houston-based company specializing in the creation of VR training software. He has run the Houston VR Meetup for the past ten years, and was programming director for the Immersive Technology Conference, one of the first conferences to focus on uses of AR and VR in business and industry. He has given presentations about VR at NASA, the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, the Houston Global Health Collaborative Conference, and many other industry events.
Immersed IRL drew attendees from around the world. I stood in line with a pre-order customer from Japan, another who had driven in from Canada, a journalist from England, and others from a dozen different US states, all eagerly waiting to try the company’s upcoming Visor headset. The long wait would end in frustration and disappointment for most of them, tempered somewhat by a widely-expressed hope that Immersed might yet deliver on its promises in the end.
Visor is an ambitious, productivity-focused headset designed by Immersed, a small, formerly software-only company, in conjunction with an array of industry partners. It is intended for a largely unmet use case: doing ‘desktop productivity’ work to make use of the unlimited canvas afforded by VR, but with a lightweight, comfortable, socially acceptable, high-resolution headset.
While the Apple Vision Pro is largely intended for productivity (with Apple even coining the term “spatial computing” to emphasize its productivity and ‘computing’ focus), it missed the mark on a number of fronts. Its high weight and front-heavy balance make extended wear uncomfortable. Its size, shape, and uncanny-valley eye simulation on the front of the headset make many users hesitant to wear it in public or in social settings. Add to that its eye-watering price-point of $3,500—and the fact that only users of Apple laptops and desktops get the full productivity benefits—and it’s easy to understand why there’s interest in bringing a competitor to the market that chooses some different trade-offs.
The Visor’s final hardware design, revealed on stage by Immersed founder Renji Bijoy, weighs roughly 185 grams (less than a third of the Apple Vision Pro’s weight), in a thin form factor.
Image courtesy Eric Liga
From the front, it does a credible job of looking like a slightly oversized pair of sunglasses. The illusion is less successful from the side due to the width of the optics, but it’s at least in the ballpark of something a user could wear while working at a coffee shop without drawing too much attention. Its screens boast a slightly higher resolution than the Apple Vision Pro, and are intended to allow it to simulate up to five large 4k monitors in a virtual or mixed-reality workspace. It eschews handheld controllers for eye-tracking and hand tracking, for any interactions not handled by a mouse or keyboard.
The tethered battery (which also houses the headset’s wi-fi and Bluetooth hardware) can be set on the desk while working, dropped in a pocket when collaborating on a virtual whiteboard, or excluded completely when connected to a PC. The fact that the radio-emitting components are housed in the optional battery pack means the headset (with some other minor adjustments) could be viable for use in high-security military and government facilities—a potentially lucrative market.
The headset is priced at $400 (but will rise to $500 after October 1st) is subsidized by a required one or two year subscription to Immersed’s software ($40/mo for 2 years, or $60/mo for 1 year). This means that the total cost is a good deal higher than it appears, but makes the up-front cost more palatable. When the subscription is included, a total cost of between $1,120 and $1,460 places it at over double the price of a Quest 3, but less than half of the price of an Apple Vision Pro.
Image courtesy Eric Liga
While the Visor is usually shown with over-the-ear stems, like a pair of sunglasses, it will also ship with a head strap designed to better balance its weight and improve comfort. Bijoy was candid about the fact that the stems are there to make non-VR users more comfortable with the idea of wearing a headset. He fully expects users to switch to the strap for extended, every-day use, and said future versions might not include the over-the-ear stems at all.
The prospect of a high-end productivity headset at a reasonable price being produced by a small software company raised an understandable mix of excitement and skepticism from the VR community. The Immersed IRL event was intended, in large part, to demonstrate that the company can deliver on its ambitious promises. But it may well have done the opposite.
At the end of the keynote, Bijoy said that the headsets were being updated to a new firmware, and that the start of promised demos might be slightly delayed. I headed to the demo line, scheduled to be part of the first demo group at 11am. At 11:30, a harried-looking group of Immersed employees pressed quickly through the crowd with headsets cushioned in styrofoam and disappeared behind the black curtain screening off the demo area.
For the next couple of hours, we waited patiently, getting occasional hints from event workers that setup was still in progress, and that demos should start soon. Eventually, a voice over the intercom announced that demos were starting, but that software issues meant that they would be “hardware only” demos.
What that ended up meaning was that we could look at and handle the headsets, and we could even put them on our heads to feel the comfort and weight. But that none of the headsets would actually be powered-on. I asked if we could at least power them up to see the quality of the displays, even if we couldn’t use them running a proper virtual environment, but was told no. Questions to determine when an actual demo might be possible—late in the day? Tomorrow?— were met with discouragingly noncommittal responses.
Finally getting one of the headsets in hand, I did my best to learn what little I could without seeing it in action. The weight was indeed lighter than any headset I’ve tried, other than the Bigscreen Beyond; more like an oddly heavy pair of sunglasses than an XR headset.
Image courtesy Eric Liga
It wasn’t as comfortable on the bridge of my nose as I’d hoped, but pressing down on the stems slightly to take a little of the weight off of the front (as the to-be-included, but apparently yet-to-be-manufactured head strap would do) made it comfortable enough that wearing them for a full work day should be reasonable. The lenses appeared to be of high quality (but I won’t be able to fully judge them until the headset is fully functional) and the build and materials looked reasonably good.
Image courtesy Eric Liga
As glum looking attendees filed through the demo area, trying on the lifeless headsets, a single engineer worked feverishly in a corner. It was clear from the glow emitting from his headset that it was powered-on. A crowd gathered to watch him from just outside the demo area, with an armed guard periodically asking them to step back, as the clock ticked down to the time when the event would be required to vacate the venue.
Less than half an hour before the event ended, the engineer sprinted to a demo station, headset in hand, and a small handful of us were ushered back in. We were each given a minute or so to try on the headset… but it still wasn’t exactly what we expected.
Image courtesy Eric Liga
The Visor was displaying a series of images and videos, but it was spreading the image across both eyes without adjusting for stereo overlap. This meant that the only way to view it without discomfort was to close one eye. There was no head-tracking or virtual environment, just a video playing directly to the displays.
From what I could see, the optics looked very good, with high clarity, a relatively large sweet spot, and minimal distortion at the edges, when the headset was properly aligned. The screen itself appeared to be vibrant, sharp, and very high resolution. You could not make out individual pixels. It was difficult to say given the limited content and brief demo time, but it looked like it was plausibly in the same league as the displays in Apple Vision Pro in terms of resolving power.
While the cameras on the headset appeared to be legitimate, it was impossible to test the passthrough view, hand-tracking, eye-tracking, positional-tracking stability, and a host of other critical features.
Image courtesy Eric Liga
I asked if I could drive back to Austin for a proper demo once the software was up and running, and was promised that I could. If and when such a demo takes place, I’ll have more to share.
After the brief and botched demo, Bijoy acknowledged that Founders Edition headsets would not be shipping soon after the event (as was originally announced). While the hardware may be close to final, I wasn’t shown anything that gave me confidence that the necessary software is approaching completion.
The Immersed crew seems sincere in their intention to bring the Visor to market, and their goals and design choices strike me as good ones. That said, I’ll be holding off on ordering one until I see signs that the software is stable, nearing feature-complete, and the promised features work as intended. I’ll be watching their progress closely, as, I’m sure, will their financial backers and pre-order customers.
Meta is widely expected to reveal the Quest 3S headset next week during the Meta Connect event. The company aims to introduce a new headset with mixed reality capabilities similar to Quest 3, but at a cheaper price. An apparent leak suggests the headset could be its most affordable yet.
According to Reddit user Vast_Front259, an Amazon ad seen on the Peacock streaming service shows the Quest 3S with 128GB of storage priced at just $300. This comes before the headset has been formally announced, which would mean the ad aired ahead of schedule.
While the ad looks legitimate, the Reddit user in question does not have a strong account history. The video that plays before the price is a previously released ad that only shows the Quest 3 in the video itself. So we remain somewhat skeptical, but nothing about this leak is fundamentally implausible.
If Quest 3S is priced at $300, it would be the most affordable Quest headset yet.
The original Quest headset was launched in 2019 for $400.
And while Quest 2 actually launched at $300, Quest 3S is expected to run on a newer processor and have mixed reality capabilities that are much closer to Quest 3—and it should run upcoming Quest 3 ‘exclusive’ content that Quest 2 cannot. So Meta has never offered a headset with such capabilities and performance at this price.
And let’s not forget about inflation. Quest 2 launched in late 2020 at $300. If Quest 3S is indeed priced at $300 in 2024, that would be just $250 in 2020.
Quest 3 launched in late 2023 for $500. And while it’s clearly Meta’s best Quest headset yet, the price and lack of killer apps for its mixed reality capabilities gave it less traction than it might have had otherwise. As far as we know, Quest 3 still hasn’t outsold the much more affordable Quest 2.
At $300, Quest 3S could finally hit the price point needed to bring Meta’s mixed reality features to the majority of Quest users—finally giving developers more incentive to build rich mixed reality content.
Anduril Industries, the defense tech company founded by Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, announced it’s partnering with Microsoft to boost the company’s militarized, HoloLens 2-based AR headset, which is currently under contract by the United States Army.
The company maintains its Lattice platform, integrated into Microsoft’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), will provide soldiers real-time threat detection, aiming to improve battlefield awareness and survivability by looping in data from sources such as drones, ground vehicles, or aerial defense systems, Wired writes.
As noted on the Anduril website, Lattice uses a host of technologies—including sensor fusion, computer vision, edge computing, machine learning and AI—to autonomously parse data from thousands of sensors and data sources into “an intelligent common operating picture in a single pane of glass.”
Image courtesy Microsoft
“Soldiers wearing Lattice-enabled IVAS headsets are rapidly warned of incoming autonomously-detected airborne threats, enhancing survivability in complex, contested environments,” Anduril says in a press release. “The integration of Anduril’s systems, alongside third-party technologies, is set to propel the IVAS mission capabilities forward.”
Luckey, who was ousted from Meta (ex-Facebook) in 2017 following backlash over his donation to a pro-Trump group, emphasized the importance of the collaboration, highlighting its potential to revolutionize military operations.
“This project is my top priority at Anduril, and it has been for some time now. It’s one of the Army’s most critical programs being fielded in the near future, with the goal of getting the right data to the right people at the right time,” Luckey says. “This is Anduril’s bread and butter, and we’ve been building the backbone for this for years. I can’t wait to show our customers what’s next — I’m incredibly excited about what’s to come.”
Microsoft’s HoloLens 2-based IVAS has faced a number of challenges since it was first awarded the U.S. Army defense contract in 2019, worth up to $22 billion.
According to Breaking Defense, in 2019 the Pentagon’s testing arm reported that early units garnered poor ratings during initial field testing, which was primarily due to reliability and ruggedness concerns, specifically citing a lack of rain resistance. At the time, IVAS was seemingly based on off-the-shelf units, augmented with additional sensors.
Concept testing in 2019, Image courtesy CNBC
In 2022, newer, more ruggedized versions reportedly received another round of negative field testing, owing to issues with the device’s low-light and thermal imaging performance, as well as soldiers’ experience with headaches, eye strain, and nausea.
Then, in late 2023, 1.2 versions of IVAS demonstrated critical improvements in “reliability, low light sensor performance, and form factor,” a U.S. Army spokesperson told Bloomberg at the time, further stating that “soldier feedback was positive.”
Still, the U.S. Army hasn’t ordered Microsoft to scale up its IVAS efforts despite continuous improvements, which more recently included replacing 1.2’s helmet-style form factor with a less cumbersome flip-up display, reportedly shrinking the 70-degree field of view to 60-degrees in the process, but also providing better clarity.
Furthermore, a recent report from Breaking Defensesuggests the U.S. Army is preparing a new open competition, called “IVAS Next”, meaning Microsoft’s IVAS could be replaced entirely if it’s outcompeted by other manufacturers, such as Kopin—or even Anduril if it decides to enter. Industry solicitation could happen later this year, Breaking Defense reports, so it’s possible we’ll learn more then.
Meta and eyewear conglomerate EssilorLuxottica announced they’re expanding their smartglasses partnership into 2030, which promises to see further development of “multi-generational smart eyewear products” from the companies.
Working together since 2019, Meta and EssilorLuxottica released the first-gen Facebook Ray-Ban Stories glasses back in 2021, later launching the follow-up Ray-Ban Meta Glasses in fall 2023, which included improved cameras, audio and more design options.
Notably, Ray-Ban Meta Glasses don’t include displays, instead offering input through voice assistant and touch on the glasses’ struts for things like taking pictures, videos, and listening to music. Since the launch of its second-gen Ray-Ban smartglasses, Meta has also released AI-powered object recognition from Microsoft’s Bing.
Meta Ray-Ban Glasses, Image courtesy Meta, EssilorLuxottica
Besides Ray-Ban, EssilorLuxottica also owns Oakley, Persol, Oliver Peoples, and Vogue Eyewear, as well as eyewear retailers LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, and Sunglass Hut.
“The incredible work we’ve done with Meta, still in its early stages, has already proven to be an important milestone in our journey to making glasses the gateway to the connected world,” EssilorLuxottica CEO Francesco Milleri says in a press statement, further noting the company is looking forward to “continuing to chart the future of the category together.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed excitement about the companies “long term roadmap ahead,” noting Meta and the Italian-French luxury eyewear group have “the opportunity to turn glasses into the next major technology platform, and make it fashionable in the process.”
An alleged internal memo from Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, Meta CTO and head of Reality Labs, maintained the company was “doubling down on finding a strong product market fit for wearable Meta AI, building a business around it, and expanding the audience. Our north star to overlay digital content seamlessly onto the physical world remains the same, but the steps on that path just got a lot more exciting.”
Then, in July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Meta was considering a minority stake of about 5% in the company, worth an estimated €4.33 billion euros (~$4.73 billion). At the time of this writing, the deal still hasn’t been confirmed, however it’s clear Meta is well on its way to deepening ties to EssilorLuxottica in effort to make smartglasses, and possibly AR glasses, an undeniably fashionable accessory.
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