Guess what the VR/AR Meta team has cooked up for? We already knew that Meta Quest 3 was likely Planning is underway for this year, but it looks like the company also plans to roll out limited “smart glasses” in 2025, with full AR glasses to follow by 2027. Of course, Meta plans to stuff upcoming AR devices with ads — their word, not for our best.
This information comes to us as a courtesy the edge, which obtained a leaked demo that Meta sent to Reality Labs on Tuesday. Perhaps the most interesting piece of tech is the augmented reality glasses codenamed “Orion,” so let’s start there.
When does Meta release augmented reality glasses?
The Meta Orion goggles have been in development for eight years, and employees will get to test the goggles sometime next year. The new roadmap includes plans to release a limited number of Orions to the public by 2027, with new versions of the Meta smart glasses and second-generation smartwatch filling the gap for anyone who can’t get their hands on an Orion.
Of course, with augmented reality comes more opportunities for Meta to expand its massive advertising business. “I think it’s easy to imagine how ads would look in space when you have augmented reality glasses on,” said Alex Himmel, vice president of AR. He added that the glasses will be able to “track conversations,” which means they’ll also be more capable of hyper-targeting ads than the Meta’s VR hardware.
Along with plans to sell users virtual goods or other services such as cloud backups, Himmel called this plan for ads “a business unlike anything we’ve seen on mobile phones before”. company The “metaverse” ambitions have proven to be an incredible moneymaker So far, but to push Meta ad activity that flags It could be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We could look into a future where you’d just walk around wearing augmented reality glasses, and see a stream of ads pop up in real space based on where you are or what you’re looking at.
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What does Meta have planned for the next few years in VR?
All of Meta’s future products are interconnected with this promise of augmented reality technology, even VR headsets. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, especially since it’s been the company’s main talking point during 2021 Connect Showcase. Meta Quest 3, currently codenamed “Stinson,” is expected to cost “a little more” than it currently costs. Minimum $400 2VR Vice President Mark Rabkin told the staff. He added, “We have to prove to people that all of this power, all of these new features are worth it.”
It’s been three years since the Quest 2 was released, and Rabkin said there’s been less interaction with its VR hardware than when the company’s cheap headset was first released.
It looks like the new device will be thinner and according to a leak from The VergeDouble strength. This new device should also include improved passthrough technology similar to Quest Pro Full color external camera setup, opening it up for augmented reality use cases. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had already mentioned that the Mission 3 should have some Mixed Reality capabilities During a call with an investor last month. According to the report, Meta wants Quest 3 users to “effortlessly” roam their homes without having to take off their headset.
Rapkin said that users should be able to create some kind of header display. They will be able to put “installers and stuff” on their virtual desktop. The new device is also supposed to ship with 41 mixed reality games and apps.
Two more headsets are reportedly in development, codenamed “Ventura” and “La Jolla”. The former is supposed to be the more “accessible” headset of the two, with a release planned for 2024. It appears to be priced somewhere between the Quest and Quest Pro VR headsets. La Jolla is the more advanced of the two, and is supposed to include more realistic avatars and visuals.
Not all news is good for the Meta’s ambitions in virtual reality, however. Meta may have recently canceled two other virtual reality headsets, codenamed “Cardiff” and “Hermosa”. The news was originally dropped in Verge editor Alex Heath’s Command Line newsletter (via download). Speculation is that the headset was the Meta Quest Pro 2 and Meta Quest Lite, with the latter ditching controllers to focus entirely on hand tracking. It’s possible that Meta may still be considering these ideas, but not as part of their annual upgrade schedule.
meta has big plans for wearable devices
As far as the company has planned more modest wearable devicesthis year will see another set of camera glasses such as Ray-Ban sponsored the pair, which Meta is releasing in 2021. The next big release of the Meta glasses technology is said to come in 2025, with a physical screen inside the glasses. Hemel told employees that these new glasses will have the ability to show incoming text messages, scan QR codes and translate text in real time. All of these features are very similar to what Gizmodo saw during CES 2023 A bunch of other technology companies working on augmented reality glasses.
This device will reportedly be controlled via a “neural interface” scope, with controls swiped to move between selections. The band should eventually be able to use a “virtual keyboard” to allow users to type texts. The company is also creating a type of smartwatch that will give users another option to control their glasses. The watch will also function like any other smartwatch, with connections to the Meta brand’s social media apps as well as some health and fitness capabilities.
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