Today, The Verge obtained the development roadmap of Meta’s augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) hardware for the next four years. It turns out that the company is going to launch its first smart glasses headset with a display in 2025. At the same time, it will release a neural interface smartwatch designed to control those glasses. Meanwhile, the company’s first full-fledged AR glasses are scheduled to launch in 2027. Mark Zuckerberg thinks that they will eventually be as widely used as phones.
As for the flagship Quest 3 VR headset, due out later this year, it is half the weight of the previous generation but at least twice as powerful. The VR headset will cost $400.
Like the recently announced Quest Pro, the Quest 3’s biggest selling point will be mixed reality. It will allow you to see the real world through the front-facing camera. Meta also announced that there would be 41 new apps and games to accompany the launch of Quest 3.
In addition, Meta plans to launch a cheaper headset codenamed Ventura in 2024. However, Meta did not say whether the second generation of the Meta Quest Pro would be coming soon. After Ventura, Meta plans to launch a state-of-the-art headset codenamed La Jolla, which will enable lifelike VR avatars.
Beyond the Quest line, Meta has thousands of employees building the AR glasses of the future and the wrist devices that control them. The key difference with VR is that the company wants AR glasses to be worn all day as a smartphone replacement eventually. Zuckerberg called them the “holy grail” that will “redefine our relationship with technology” by the end of the century.
At Tuesday’s roadmap briefing, Meta’s vice president of AR, Alex Himel, laid out plans for a series of device developments through 2027. The first of these smart glasses will be Meta’s second-generation camera, which will be launched by Luxottica this autumn.
In 2025, Meta will launch its third-generation smart glasses, which will feature a “viewfinder” display for viewing incoming text messages, scanning QR codes, and translating in real time. The glasses will have a “neural interface” strap that will allow the wearer to control the glasses with hand movements.
While Meta has canceled plans for a smartwatch with a detachable display and camera, the company is still working on another smartwatch to go with its 2025 glasses. The smartwatch will feature a “neural interface” that acts as an input device.
Meta’s first true AR glasses, which the company has been developing in-house for eight years and codenamed Orion, are more technologically advanced, more expensive, and designed to project high-quality holographic avatars into the real world. According to Himel, there will be an “internal launch” in 2024 for employees to test the glasses. But Meta won’t be releasing them to the public until 2027.
With nearly 2 billion pairs of regular glasses and hundreds of millions of smartwatches sold annually, Himel believes Meta will rely on its existing advertising business model to monetize these future devices. Thanks to the ability to sell virtual goods, optional add-ons such as cloud backups, and AR ads, they can generate higher average revenue per user than social media currently does, Himel said.
