Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg brought his Labs division team together on Tuesday to finally reveal the roadmap for its much anticipated augmented and virtual reality hardware.
The company plans to launch its first pair of smart glasses with a display to be controlled via a neural control smartwatch in 2025, while its first real AR glasses should hit the market in 2027.
Meta shared with its thousands of employees their goal to invest further into consumer hardware despite the numerous setbacks and their efforts to cut costs across the company.
The roadmap featured the progress of Meta’s flagship, Quest 3, which should debut later this year. The public should expect substantial upgrades to the Quest 2 headset, including thinner hardware and better performance.
However, their main challenge will be to convince the market the upgrade is worth parting with $400 more on the Quest 2 price tag.
According to Mark Rabkin, the company’s vice president for VR, the team still has a lot of work ahead in terms of marketing. He mentioned the need to get enthusiasts eager and excited for the new release and prove that the extra power and features are worth their money.
Why the Current Quest is Struggling to Keep Up with the Market.
Rabkin pushed for moves to make the Quest store more dynamic to create sufficient room for developers to play around with other features like automated promotions to stimulate Quest 2 market growth.
However, the company’s biggest challenge is retaining and resurrecting its Quest audience. Although Meta has sold about 20 million headsets, Rabkin recommended improving their social skills by adding value to become more reliable and intuitive.
As Zuckerberg and his team work toward maximizing the new roadmap, their competitors work harder. Sony’s PSVR 2 for console gamers debuted recently, and the reception was remarkable.
On the other hand, Apple could announce the release of a sophisticated virtual reality headset anytime this year and is also working on its new-gen augmented reality glasses; therefore, Meta is still in the woods.
Meta’s AR Plan
Meta’s AR glasses are set to revolutionize the entire mobile technology scene. Zuckerberg calls them the “holy grail” device and once explained that they would significantly redefine how humans relate to technology.
The vision is to make these glasses wearable throughout the day and phase out the need for mobile phones as they will be linked and controlled by wrist devices.
The roadmap presentation featured several devices to be released all through 2027.
First on the list is Meta’s camera-equipped second-generation smart glasses in fall this year. These pairs are an improvement of the original collab launched in 2021 by Meta and Luxottica, Ray-Ban’s parent company.
In 2025, the company will release a third generation of smart glasses enhanced with a viewfinder display allowing users to view incoming text messages and scan QR codes.
Additionally, the pair is expected to have real-time text translation and a neural interface, enabling users to control the glasses with their hands.
The much-anticipated AR glasses should be ready for testing by 2024. This is according to the company’s vice president for AR, Alex Himel.
The final release is expected to be technically futuristic and advanced compared to its predecessors.
The new design features high-quality holograms of avatars in the real world. The company is promising a massive market opportunity for growth but plans to rely on existing business models for marketing.
As we take awe at the numbers Meta is projecting, expectations run higher, and their competitors develop counter actions; thus, we should expect a very active tech scene.
