This feels closer to the quest 3, so maybe consider it a successor in a way? Since meta is moving away from VR gaming, it may end up cannibalizing sales in a "good" way for the company.
According to the influencer, the weight is 100 g. I have 25 g (+lenses) glasses I wear often, and even that is right on the upper edge of what's comfortable and needs almost-uncomfortable tight arms to stay steady when my head moves. And, that's all as somebody who's worn glasses all my waking hours since like age 10, complete with nose-indent calluses. Either those Meta glasses are clamping uncomfortably hard on the sides of your head all the time or they'll fall off the first time you lean forward.
Is it just me or do those angles deliberately obscure how thick it is lens-wise? I have a pair of X-real airs, 2 years old now, and they're pretty thick. They're 1/4th the price and basically work as a head-mounted display. Is that what this, but way fancier and more sleek?
It's a novelty because you had to put on a big uncomfortable headset that required wires up until recently went was really fidgety. Once you get the form factor fixed and comfortable everything will change. This looks like a big step in that direction. Too bad I don't want Meta looking through my eyes.
Once you get the form factor fixed and comfortable everything will change
Will it? Even if you offer people AR glasses and smartphones at the same price, I'd expect most people to pick the phone. Nobody wants to tap their glasses on a Square reader to buy coffee, or ask their specs to take a picture.
The VR/AR modality struggles when OEMs rely on unique native experiences as a selling point. There's no "killer app" for VR a even decade after the original Oculus DTK. Palmer Luckey sold Oculus to go work on building cruise missiles, to give you an idea of how awful VR's prospects are.
I no longer bother watching movies or shows on my (very big) TV ever since I got an AVP. The experience (lying down on my bed, with gigantic movie screen floating above me) is unmatched.
For that use case, why would you choose wearing anything over just having a couple of projectors in the bedroom and living room? That is far more common than owning a vision pro because it's cheaper, more comfortable, more social, etc.
On the audio end of this, you can even throw in some properly righteous speakers in both rooms. All combined, this is still cheaper than or equal to the vision pro price for an objectively better movie experience. The projector image will always be bigger than your TV and speakers that expensive will rattle the walls with bass and shatter your eardrums. It doesn't matter how good earbuds get, there's no replacement for displacement (of air). Don't you like feeling the power?
I’m not saying AVP is cheap, I’m saying visually it’s better.
more comfortable
Nothing could be more comfortable than lying flat on bed with head propped up just a bit, and screen floating at 45 degrees in front of me, which I can easily reposition and resize to perfectly hit my FOV.
more social
Heh, I’m not looking to socialize while enjoying a movie at home
The only way a physical setup would win is righteous speakers. I suppose I could connect physical speakers, but that breaks the awesome immersion of enjoying a movie in perfect (to the rest of my family) silence.
But really all I can say is that the visual experience and physical comfort (when lying down) of a movie on AVP is unparalleled, and this is not at all why I bought it, and it’s probably something one really has to experience to understand.
The only thing I've consistently used VR on is virtual biking/walking videos for when I'm on my exercise bike, and a Google VR app called Wander. I don't have the space for anything that can't be done sitting down and I don't have the memory to run VR Chat.
I agree it's a novelty, it's never going to be the mainstream thing that replaces all existing interfaces and transforms the very concept of reality like some people want it to be. But it is fun within its niche.
I think what's holding it back is price more than anything. I'm still hanging on to my Quest because it just isn't worth the money for me to upgrade, even though half the apps no longer even work (fuck you very much DeoVR.)
If Apple released a product with the same form factor, it would likely be a winner. The issue with Meta is that its brand is tarnished for anyone older than Gen Alpha. I don’t have hard data, but I am guessing the majority of VR users are children under their parents’ meta accounts.
I’m still buying this for myself. I enjoy the private movie theater experience and turning every video game session into a decent cardio workout; I’ve lost 60 lbs with VR to date.
The list is too long, but essentially almost every VR game will force you to move since you’re no longer controlling an avatar with buttons. You are now inside the game instead of viewing it from outside of a box, so you’re going to be moving and punching.
For me the biggest calorie burners are boxing games. Beat Saber and others like Synth Riders are great too. Then there are fitness focus apps like Body Combat and even one for rowing machines.
Hopefully, Meta can convince HR firms that this is a fitness device that is eligible for FSA like benefits.
I have found VR an easy way to get moving in a fun/low friction way at the end of the day, instead of heading somewhere else. Depending on what you are doing, it isn't going to cover everything, but moving something is better than nothing.
Personally, I found Synth Riders a good way to queue up 60min continous activity that I enjoy.
Some of the key specs cause the page is rather thin on details:
* Display Type: Micro-OLED
* Resolution: 2412 × 2288 pixels per eye
* Angular Resolution: 37 PPD
* Field of View: 70° × 66°
* Chipset: Snapdragon Reality Elite
* Memory & Storage: 12GB RAM with 128GB internal storage (expandable up to 1TB via microSD on the puck)
* Tracking & Sensors: 6DoF positional tracking, depth sensing, autofocus, 4-camera eye tracking, face tracking, and hand tracking
* Passthrough: Color RGB passthrough cameras at 26 PPD
* Price: $ 1300,- USD plus your data
Similar PPD to an AVP at, what I as a former owner of one (alongside a Quest 2 and 3, a Magic Leap, Xreal and Viture) would call is a far more appealing implementation for actual productive work.
Really wish Apple had gone down this route, have the puck incorporate an A series chip rather than shoving a M series one into the headset itself and heck, I could see such a design being doable for them back when they first launched the AVP if they hadn't forced that utterly ridiculous eye display and stupendously heavy metal body.
There is, unless I am mistaken, nothing here that isn't established technology as found in the AVP, all the fancy display and lens experiments from Starburst, over Holocake to Mirror Lake seem to remain in the lab, this seems to be "just" pancake lenses plus Micro-OLED once more.
70 degree FOV is such a deal breaker for gaming. That and the price. In a world where people already have tons of screens, monitors and TVs in their face - the practical use case for this is relegated to trains and planes. Very niche.
The form factor itself is also a killer. Couldn't imagine doing anything besides using it as large private display for 2D games. You aren't going to be moving your head around quickly with just pressure on your temples to hold it in place.
Not sure where this lands functionality wise. I feel like it's most direct competition would be as a cheaper Apple Vision. You would need to pair it off with a Windows system for heavier productivity work most likely. Even though their OS is "android", it doesn't have the Google ecosystem behind it, let alone matured on that front. Media consumption on the go seems to be the other use case.
So, compare them to either XREALs plugged into a laptop/phone, or Apple Vision Pro I guess.
You can, but the FOV is narrow so not great for multiple screens, and the focal length is probably around 4 ft so you're not going to be able to use a screen closer without eye strain.
Steam Frame has black and white passthrough but it's not good enough for AR. They sell a third party's passthrough camera as an add-on though which is $130 I think and clips on the front. Since the Frame runs open Linux with KDE this is really interesting to me.
As long as this is mixed reality and not a clunky VR-only headset like the previous Meta Quest devices, then this far exceeds what ever the Vision Pro hype was and any other XR device in the market.
This is XR for the rest of us and a worthy competitor to the Xreal.
Not sure what you mean. The marketing video shows pancake optical stacks and specs have mentioned OLED displays. While the marketing video attempts to play up an immersive fantastical reality, the experience will function like a Quest 3 or Apple Vision Pro, where there are external cameras that then get projected onto the internal screens.
oh man playing halo and jumping off the ship and falling through the sky will feel insane with this i imagine. i just hope people have enough open space around them when enjoying the limitless expansion of VR world. DOnt want people to hurt their knees and heads and knock off their furnitures all the time.
I understand this is quite good, but I also have something like 20/12.5 eyesight. To me, using these things feels like looking through a coarse screen door.
E: For reference, I can comfortably count pixels on a 24.5" 1080p screen from a normal seated position.
I've been buying HMDs since the first Oculus, and I promptly sell them to somebody else. 37 PPD is a little more than halfway to "perfect" for someone with 20/20 eyesight
It is all a compromise. 37 PPD is well under the standard for normal "good" eyesight (aka. "retina" in Apple marketing), which is 60 (aka. 1 arcminute).
Doing more with a narrower field of view is easy, it is even cheaper. Doing more with the same or better field of view means you need more pixels and more computing power to drive them, so more expensive, heavier hardware that gets hotter and with less battery life.
People at Meta consitered 37 PPD to be a good compromise, and I kind of agree.
Coming from Quest 3, everything about it sounds great BUT for that FOV. Even on Quest with 103 x 96, I sometimes feel like I'm looking around through a mask or binoculars. Can't imagine how restrictive it might be on 70 x 66.
Hopefully it's not so bad.
Oh BTW they showed a new Beat Saber game, and among the logos I've seen Ace Attorney VR among a few others. Let's see if those come for Quest 3 and maybe even PCVR.
I had an Oculus Quest and it was a really great device. After the "Meta" rebrand, the quality rapidly decreased and now it wants me to upload my ID to Meta to keep using it. Absolutely not! Zuckerberg already has way too much information on me, uploading my state issued identification to them is such an insane ask, I will never do it. While this looks like interesting hardware, the company behind it has unacceptable and user-hostile practices, so I'll pass.
You shouldn't have to do this and I won't. I'll vote with my dollars and never buy another device from them. It's too bad because I genuinely liked it as well, but it's not worth the invasion of privacy and normalizing sending this type of information to any consumer company.
Because people are naive enough to think the huge privacy compromise will be worth the cost to society in order to protect kids.
The better question is why in 5yrs we will have to use ID to buy a product on some random ecommerce site or to play a video game or use Uber or post a comment on Reddit. It will be because people pushed for this for kids on social media and opened the door for the rest of the internet companies to demand it and therefore the government.
I really hate it when some vague "people" are blamed for this bullshit. those who do -- a minority -- do it only because they've been brainwashed by the relentless public opinion campaign ran jointly by the capital and the governments.
Think of the children … or are your a chomo? Now hand over your papers for access to information and communications more that all the books have been fed into the AI shredder and paper and writing instruments were done away with to save the planet.
Facebook/Meta has a system that decides if it thinks you are lying about your name or if it just isn't sure, if you get flagged for ID verification. These days it might also be because they think you are under 18, but the ID verification system existed long long before age checking.
If you haven't seen it, it's probably because your account is old and they have scraped enough contact lists to believe your name is real.
They recently managed to crack open the bootloader, most of meta stuff can be bypassed now.
I despise how it went from a great device to almost a paperweight with just horrible software updates (as it's the norm these days).
It’s rather astonishing to me how the vampire squid of world domination has apparently worked out just how to neutralize any sense of self-preservation, and manipulate and gaslight anything into place if they have enough time and are patient.
Everything from “freedom sticks” to get women to breath in smoke and ash like the foolish men, to going from “government IDs are just conspiracy theory” to “you have to show your papers to see information and communicate with other humans on the only method that is still widely possible; it’s all just been slowly salami sliced and microdosed into our societies. Worse yet, still a large chunk of society seem utterly oblivious as long as they can consume their particular customized and personalized opiate of the masses.
The aggressive push for ID verification is a direct result of massive government lawsuits regarding online child safety. As a strict condition of this settlement, Meta is legally mandated to enforce hard age gates.
Plus they already have all that data... Your ID is not private information. It's an identifier that they don't need or want.
As a strict condition of this settlement, Meta is legally mandated to enforce hard age gates.
Not for allowing you to use your own hardware, what utter nonsense.
It was their choice to forcibly link their hardware to their online account system despite it working fine without it. But it’s absolutely not true that the government requires age verification for using VR goggles.
Yeah, you beat me to this - I laughed at Meta needing any information considering shadow profiles have always existed and every company leaks data like a sieve xD
Facebook was doing ID checks well before this because they want to stop ban evasion.
ID checks just came to the Quest because they forced facebook accounts which already had ID checks on it. They should never have made facebook accounts mandatory for playing games.
Exactly where I am. Was all-in on Quest 1 and Quest 2, but had to offboard due to Meta's wild policies (that ended up locking me out of my account with little recourse -- some bug with the Oculus standalone account merge with FB and then re-split).
As much as I'm a proponent of VR, I won't play by Meta's rules.
Looks fun, but it'll most probably need a Meta account, won't run open firmware, and most importantly wearing it in public instead of using my MacBook will make me look like an idiot. So: meh.
I’ve used the Vision Pro in public. I don’t care what people think of me, but I did get annoyed at people tapping me on the shoulder and asking about it.
It still seems weird to me when I hear people seemingly talking to themselves as if hallucinating. It always surprises me until I realize what's happening.
What problem does it solve? I see a bunch of potential uses but I don’t see any problems looking to be solved.
Will I like gaming better if I control the games with my hands instead of a controller?
Will I like working in my glasses better than my laptop screen? Or even a dual laptop screen like a ZenBook Duo? Or a cheap second portable display? Do these glasses fit better in a backpack than a laptop and a second portable screen? They can’t collapse flat.
Are these glasses more portable and convenient than a smartphone? What are the benefits to watching an NBA game on this compared to a phone or my TV screen at home?
I can’t believe Meta is blowing their money on this stuff still.
From the video they have on their site: watching movies in places where you normally would stare at a tiny screen; they also show folks using virtual floating keyboards in front of a VR desktop to work.
I might consider them if I can wire it to my laptop. I use the meta quest for development because of infinite virtual screens and due to my apartment being so small I can't fit a proper desk and office chair. But still is a very niche usage, if I had space I would very likely get a desk with a dual or triple monitor setup. If the resolution is good, it is actually nice to have a very portable infinite screen setup if you travel a lot.
Thanks, i will check it out. I think I did a couple years ago but mac os support was bad at the time? I don't quite remember, but this seems great now. Do you have one? Any experience with using it for work on mac os with multiple virtual screens?
I hope one day a version of this becomes mainstream enough that it justifies developing for it. It's the ergonomics that prevent that from happening, and moving toward glasses is one of the most important stepping stones. (though if you saw someone wearing "glasses" like this you would probably say it's stretching the definition of glasses)
When someone gets this right I do think we're all gonna ditch the 2d screens and phones.
It doesn't even matter if it's Meta that instigates this, if money is smelled there will be more consumer friendly alternatives popping up overnight (e.g. see how quickly the industry copied the iPhone).
I had the oculus rift, sold it when they made me get a Facebook account (they might have backtracked on that). Bought a quest 2 thinking surely they have learned their lesson by now.
Nope.
Some of the decisions they made around ux are so insane I feel like ripping it off and throwing it across the room. I bet there are some properly talented people at meta, but someone senior is committed to making it suck. Wouldn't be surprised if it's zuck himself. So even though I'm passionate about it, I have no VR in my life because I can't afford another one
I can't help but feel like all the tech glasses are basically a way to get more ai training data where they can get like a constant stream of human POV stuff.
It's essentially a cheaper and lighter AVP without the Apple ecosystem. There's nothing revolutionary about this device.
Every time a major tech company comes out with a new headset, I check one thing: Does it have a light field display? (In this case, no it doesn't.) In 5-10 years, headsets are going to be much better. Your eyes will be able to focus on objects like they do in real space and you won't have to deal with the hassle of an external battery.
Its lighter form factor is more evolutionary than revolutionary. The AVP has some unnecessary extras such as the outward-facing display. If Apple wanted, it could make an Apple Vision Air with the latest A-series chip, a much lighter form factor and a much lower price - just like Meta VR Glasses.
At the timestamp of the video, after the question she goes in length about the [mind boggling] settlement, limiting to 2h/day for under 18 years old is not too bad?
Yes, not too bad for a question the moderator didn't really ask. She's really good at diverting the topic to a less uncomfortable field. No wonder she's in charge of a platform with 3.07 billion monthly active users. Also note the tone and condescending attitude.
meh all of these mega corps do whatever they can to maximise profit. Apple used slave-like labour from China (or still use depending on who you ask) and turned a blind eye until it could no more. Which to me is worse than what Meta did. But they are not Americans so most don't care around these parts.
Correct, but that's also whataboutism. I know apathy can easily take over, but when you get laughed in the face just like that it feels really hopeless. No, it's not my first day on the internet and no, it's not the first time I see companies act like this, but something about this feels very wrong.
Glad it's using the Meta XR SDK - it's a closed ecosystem but at least it IS an ecosystem.
The Ray-Ban Metas had no ecosystem. No SDK, no app store, just apps made by Meta. They finally announced an SDK in 2026 but why would I support a device that was so anti-developer for years?
1) Blackout. Let me use them as a way to get complete pitch black when i want it
2) Amazing resolution. None of the existing products are good enough to replace my physical screens, but i'd love to.
3) Comfortable. Nothing has been comfortable enough to wear long term. Sure maybe an hour or two, but 8-10 hrs a day for work? Not even close.
I thought Meta's approach to AR was pivoting towards transparent glasses with displays in the vein of Ray Ban Display and Orion (I realize that "VR" is in the title, but almost all the images show AR use cases). Their original vision for AR was to have people walking around with quest headsets in passthrough mode. But that's just too weird for the vast majority of people. I can't imaging walking around in public and ordering coffee with my eyes totally obscured behind a device. I saw a couple co-workers walking around wearing headsets like this when I worked at Reality Labs, but it was obvious to me and all my teammates that vanishingly few people would actually do that in public.
I guess the approach here is to shrink down the VR glasses and make them look more like normal glasses from a distance. But I still don't think I'd wear one of these walking around the mall or airport. Reduction in FOV is also a big negative. I'm not really sure where one would use this device over a Quest or the Ray Ban Display. It occupies this awkward middle point where it's not a transparent glass display, but it's also makes a lot of compromises compared to the rest of the VR line.
Spring 2027 is eternity in the future from today. I love the concept they advertise but by then, there will be so many amazing products and releases.
If they could give me this today and worked somewhat like they promise, even though for $500 or so I can get glasses that do what I need them to do today, for more fidelity I would gladly pay 1k+ they are asking.
I am not sure what will happen till Spring or Summer next year.
Looks like superb hardware, and contrary to many others the use cases this is designed for look actually worth it. "AVP but lighter and cheaper" or "looks designed for trains or planes" . . . well, obviously.
The key problem is it's Meta. People don't even trust other people near them to use Meta hardware, and the way they dealt with Oculus users was just grimy. From basically any other company this would be a very welcome device. Zuckerberg needs to fix the company first, because there's no such thing as a killer product good enough to overcome this hurdle.
After my experience with the Quest 3's software, I'm not really interested in anything Meta. That's ignoring the privacy issues and other issues with Meta as a company.
$1300 for 70° × 66° FOV is pretty awful. Also, I wish they'd stop hyping these devices for productivity when they know the text isn't sharp enough. This will be good for watching stuff and that's about it. Is it good enough at that to justify tethering yourself to a brick? I suspect not for $1300.
I'm in VR a lot, mostly in bigscreen VR, and have had the Quest, Quest 2, and Quest 3. I don't see any reason to upgrade from the latter at all.
I see Disney+ 3D videos featured pretty heavily on the landing page.
I believe that launched as an Apple exclusive. I wonder if that means the millions of Oculus Quest headsets that have been gathering dust for years will finally have some immersive content worth watching.
I really hope they’ll care a little more about using this for productivity. I wish the quest 3s would work offline eg. on a plane as my external monitor for my MacBook.
There's plenty of reason to still be skeptical about the future of VR, or Meta's practices, but shoving all of that aside it does look like a big step toward the level of comfort that's going to be needed for VR to succeed. Not at this price point, but it's incremental progress.
I just got swept up in this mass Threads suspension yesterday, despite not using it. I am locked out of Facebook and Messenger, and my Portal, Oculus, and Glasses are now bricked. I pay them $12 for Instagram a month, mostly to deter username thieves, and that was oddly not suspended, despite being linked, so the "safety" claims ring hollow. Be very careful about giving your money to Meta. They are quick to unperson with no recourse.
That is a very shitty situation, but I have to ask... what made you think giving them your money was ever a good idea? I can't imagine buying not one but three physical devices from one of the world's most notorious spyware companies.
It will be interesting to see how this product is differentiated from the Meta Ray Ban Display. They now have the line up:
Meta Ray Ban Audio
Meta Ray Ban Display
Meta VR Glasses
Meta Quest 3
This feels closer to the quest 3, so maybe consider it a successor in a way? Since meta is moving away from VR gaming, it may end up cannibalizing sales in a "good" way for the company.
On the bottom of the page it says they are called:
and
Which really grinds my OCD.
Youtube video Meta released: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyD_bmMy5nQ
And another random youtube influencer who tried it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J8oIs1GA0o
$1300 price
According to the influencer, the weight is 100 g. I have 25 g (+lenses) glasses I wear often, and even that is right on the upper edge of what's comfortable and needs almost-uncomfortable tight arms to stay steady when my head moves. And, that's all as somebody who's worn glasses all my waking hours since like age 10, complete with nose-indent calluses. Either those Meta glasses are clamping uncomfortably hard on the sides of your head all the time or they'll fall off the first time you lean forward.
Is it just me or do those angles deliberately obscure how thick it is lens-wise? I have a pair of X-real airs, 2 years old now, and they're pretty thick. They're 1/4th the price and basically work as a head-mounted display. Is that what this, but way fancier and more sleek?
I tried VR and, as many others have said, it's a novelty that wears thin quickly.
I'm amazed though at the amount of effort and corporate money that keeps being thrown at VR trying to make it a thing.
It feels like, to the public, it's like some tired The Beverly Hillbillies re-run that keeps popping up from time to time.
The younger generation uses VR a lot. It's like Nintendo in the 80s.
Must be younger than my (20's) daughters then. Their crowd would rather touch grass.
I'm sure they touch their phones a million times more than grass.
Touching grass is actually not that good for you. You get itchy or could have an allergic reaction.
Virtual reality grass is much safer, maybe that's what he meant?
Touch glass
Who?
I have a teenager and a 9 year old and I've never heard this from anyone.
I think nintendo for that generation is nintendo switch. Or roblox.
It's a novelty because you had to put on a big uncomfortable headset that required wires up until recently went was really fidgety. Once you get the form factor fixed and comfortable everything will change. This looks like a big step in that direction. Too bad I don't want Meta looking through my eyes.
You could be right. But I also keep hearing that excuse (since the Jaron Lanier, power-glove VR days) so color me skeptical.
Will it? Even if you offer people AR glasses and smartphones at the same price, I'd expect most people to pick the phone. Nobody wants to tap their glasses on a Square reader to buy coffee, or ask their specs to take a picture.
The VR/AR modality struggles when OEMs rely on unique native experiences as a selling point. There's no "killer app" for VR a even decade after the original Oculus DTK. Palmer Luckey sold Oculus to go work on building cruise missiles, to give you an idea of how awful VR's prospects are.
You'd use it in conjunction with a phone, just like a smart watch. It wouldn't replace your phone.
Smart watches aren't particularly popular, even at the sub-smartphone price point.
I too once abandoned a bowl of cereal for a steak dinner, but that says nothing about the quality of the cereal.
I no longer bother watching movies or shows on my (very big) TV ever since I got an AVP. The experience (lying down on my bed, with gigantic movie screen floating above me) is unmatched.
For that use case, why would you choose wearing anything over just having a couple of projectors in the bedroom and living room? That is far more common than owning a vision pro because it's cheaper, more comfortable, more social, etc.
On the audio end of this, you can even throw in some properly righteous speakers in both rooms. All combined, this is still cheaper than or equal to the vision pro price for an objectively better movie experience. The projector image will always be bigger than your TV and speakers that expensive will rattle the walls with bass and shatter your eardrums. It doesn't matter how good earbuds get, there's no replacement for displacement (of air). Don't you like feeling the power?
I’m not saying AVP is cheap, I’m saying visually it’s better.
Nothing could be more comfortable than lying flat on bed with head propped up just a bit, and screen floating at 45 degrees in front of me, which I can easily reposition and resize to perfectly hit my FOV.
Heh, I’m not looking to socialize while enjoying a movie at home
The only way a physical setup would win is righteous speakers. I suppose I could connect physical speakers, but that breaks the awesome immersion of enjoying a movie in perfect (to the rest of my family) silence.
But really all I can say is that the visual experience and physical comfort (when lying down) of a movie on AVP is unparalleled, and this is not at all why I bought it, and it’s probably something one really has to experience to understand.
I sometimes wish that I could read a book like that. But I think the reality is that it would make me tired and fall asleep.
It really is a joke. Where are my AR contact lenses? It's 2026 for fuck's sake.
The only thing I've consistently used VR on is virtual biking/walking videos for when I'm on my exercise bike, and a Google VR app called Wander. I don't have the space for anything that can't be done sitting down and I don't have the memory to run VR Chat.
I agree it's a novelty, it's never going to be the mainstream thing that replaces all existing interfaces and transforms the very concept of reality like some people want it to be. But it is fun within its niche.
I think what's holding it back is price more than anything. I'm still hanging on to my Quest because it just isn't worth the money for me to upgrade, even though half the apps no longer even work (fuck you very much DeoVR.)
If Apple released a product with the same form factor, it would likely be a winner. The issue with Meta is that its brand is tarnished for anyone older than Gen Alpha. I don’t have hard data, but I am guessing the majority of VR users are children under their parents’ meta accounts.
I’m still buying this for myself. I enjoy the private movie theater experience and turning every video game session into a decent cardio workout; I’ve lost 60 lbs with VR to date.
What are you doing in VR for fitness?
The list is too long, but essentially almost every VR game will force you to move since you’re no longer controlling an avatar with buttons. You are now inside the game instead of viewing it from outside of a box, so you’re going to be moving and punching.
For me the biggest calorie burners are boxing games. Beat Saber and others like Synth Riders are great too. Then there are fitness focus apps like Body Combat and even one for rowing machines.
Hopefully, Meta can convince HR firms that this is a fitness device that is eligible for FSA like benefits.
Not sure how to date this list is, but here is one way to look at it. https://vrhealth.institute/vr-ratings/
I have found VR an easy way to get moving in a fun/low friction way at the end of the day, instead of heading somewhere else. Depending on what you are doing, it isn't going to cover everything, but moving something is better than nothing.
Personally, I found Synth Riders a good way to queue up 60min continous activity that I enjoy.
Some of the key specs cause the page is rather thin on details:
* Display Type: Micro-OLED
* Resolution: 2412 × 2288 pixels per eye
* Angular Resolution: 37 PPD
* Field of View: 70° × 66°
* Chipset: Snapdragon Reality Elite
* Memory & Storage: 12GB RAM with 128GB internal storage (expandable up to 1TB via microSD on the puck)
* Tracking & Sensors: 6DoF positional tracking, depth sensing, autofocus, 4-camera eye tracking, face tracking, and hand tracking
* Passthrough: Color RGB passthrough cameras at 26 PPD
* Price: $ 1300,- USD plus your data
Similar PPD to an AVP at, what I as a former owner of one (alongside a Quest 2 and 3, a Magic Leap, Xreal and Viture) would call is a far more appealing implementation for actual productive work.
Really wish Apple had gone down this route, have the puck incorporate an A series chip rather than shoving a M series one into the headset itself and heck, I could see such a design being doable for them back when they first launched the AVP if they hadn't forced that utterly ridiculous eye display and stupendously heavy metal body.
There is, unless I am mistaken, nothing here that isn't established technology as found in the AVP, all the fancy display and lens experiments from Starburst, over Holocake to Mirror Lake seem to remain in the lab, this seems to be "just" pancake lenses plus Micro-OLED once more.
70 degree FOV is such a deal breaker for gaming. That and the price. In a world where people already have tons of screens, monitors and TVs in their face - the practical use case for this is relegated to trains and planes. Very niche.
exactly i dont see the appeal or use cases other than planes or trains and stuff.
The form factor itself is also a killer. Couldn't imagine doing anything besides using it as large private display for 2D games. You aren't going to be moving your head around quickly with just pressure on your temples to hold it in place.
Not sure where this lands functionality wise. I feel like it's most direct competition would be as a cheaper Apple Vision. You would need to pair it off with a Windows system for heavier productivity work most likely. Even though their OS is "android", it doesn't have the Google ecosystem behind it, let alone matured on that front. Media consumption on the go seems to be the other use case.
So, compare them to either XREALs plugged into a laptop/phone, or Apple Vision Pro I guess.
There was mention of a DisplayPort, so is there a way to just stream your MacBook into it?
Closing the lid and working in one of these would be great, but there's always a caveat that blocks this.
The Quest series supports both wired and wireless streaming, so I'd be surprised if that wasn't an option.
You can, but the FOV is narrow so not great for multiple screens, and the focal length is probably around 4 ft so you're not going to be able to use a screen closer without eye strain.
"100 grams" is the headline here
meanwhile the Bigscreen Beyond 2:
* Display: also micro-OLED
* Resolution: 2560 x 2560 per eye
* Angular resolution: 32 PPD
* Field of view: 116°D, 108°H x 96°V
* Chipset: none lol plugs into your computer
* Tracking and sensors: needs base stations
* Weight: 107 g
* Passthrough: no
* Price: $959 (+$200 for eye tracking)
* needs base stations, a PC, and has a cable, and looks kinda like dorky swim goggles (but still pretty futuristic and cool)
meanwhile the Steam Frame:
* Display: LCD
* Resolution: 2160 x 2160 per eye
* Angular resolution: 20
* Field of view: 110 degrees
* Chipset: Snapdragon 8 gen 3
* Memory and storage: 16GB of ram with 256GB UFS plus microSD
* Tracking and sensors: inside out camera based tracking
* Weight: 185 g core headset, 440 g including strap, rear battery, facial interface, and audio
* Passthrough: idk
* Price: $1059 for 256GB, $1299 for 1TB
Steam Frame has black and white passthrough but it's not good enough for AR. They sell a third party's passthrough camera as an add-on though which is $130 I think and clips on the front. Since the Frame runs open Linux with KDE this is really interesting to me.
How is it powered? External battery? Or what's the built in battery life like?
Battery and computer puck. There are photos on the site
I somehow missed the pics where one of the arms had a cable attached to a battery
As long as this is mixed reality and not a clunky VR-only headset like the previous Meta Quest devices, then this far exceeds what ever the Vision Pro hype was and any other XR device in the market.
This is XR for the rest of us and a worthy competitor to the Xreal.
Not sure what you mean. The marketing video shows pancake optical stacks and specs have mentioned OLED displays. While the marketing video attempts to play up an immersive fantastical reality, the experience will function like a Quest 3 or Apple Vision Pro, where there are external cameras that then get projected onto the internal screens.
oh man playing halo and jumping off the ship and falling through the sky will feel insane with this i imagine. i just hope people have enough open space around them when enjoying the limitless expansion of VR world. DOnt want people to hurt their knees and heads and knock off their furnitures all the time.
two weeks ago I basically punched my coffee table while trying to stab a guy on the floor in VR. My left hand still hurts.
So yeah, be careful of the play area. :)
Obligatory subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/VRtoER/
37 PPD is dogshit man.
I understand this is quite good, but I also have something like 20/12.5 eyesight. To me, using these things feels like looking through a coarse screen door.
E: For reference, I can comfortably count pixels on a 24.5" 1080p screen from a normal seated position.
I've been buying HMDs since the first Oculus, and I promptly sell them to somebody else. 37 PPD is a little more than halfway to "perfect" for someone with 20/20 eyesight
Notably the standard resolution of 96 DPI at 28 inches is 47 PPD.
37PPD is triple the Index’s density.
What in the world are you using as your benchmark to call 37 “dogshit”?
Probably comparing something like a normal monitor at standard distance.
It is all a compromise. 37 PPD is well under the standard for normal "good" eyesight (aka. "retina" in Apple marketing), which is 60 (aka. 1 arcminute).
Doing more with a narrower field of view is easy, it is even cheaper. Doing more with the same or better field of view means you need more pixels and more computing power to drive them, so more expensive, heavier hardware that gets hotter and with less battery life.
People at Meta consitered 37 PPD to be a good compromise, and I kind of agree.
Just give yourself time and you’ll be the target customer then!
And still capturing audio where (in my state) you can't record conversations without consent?
Sounds like you shouldn't use them in your state then? You can't open carry in my state... so I don't.
This may come as a surprise, but most phones can capture audio these days. Has your state made them illegal yet?
Not yet! although its not legal to do so.
Coming from Quest 3, everything about it sounds great BUT for that FOV. Even on Quest with 103 x 96, I sometimes feel like I'm looking around through a mask or binoculars. Can't imagine how restrictive it might be on 70 x 66.
Hopefully it's not so bad.
Oh BTW they showed a new Beat Saber game, and among the logos I've seen Ace Attorney VR among a few others. Let's see if those come for Quest 3 and maybe even PCVR.
Ouch, that's a tough sell. Maybe useful for AR type stuff, but I wouldn't want to go from a Quest/Index/Frame/etc to that for VR.
This is very cool. We finally have something that genuinely looks like glasses.
Now someone just needs to learn how to hack into these glasses remotely…and then we will have the Ghost in the Shell moment.
I had an Oculus Quest and it was a really great device. After the "Meta" rebrand, the quality rapidly decreased and now it wants me to upload my ID to Meta to keep using it. Absolutely not! Zuckerberg already has way too much information on me, uploading my state issued identification to them is such an insane ask, I will never do it. While this looks like interesting hardware, the company behind it has unacceptable and user-hostile practices, so I'll pass.
How do they explain why they need your ID to use VR glasses?
Age verification.
Yes but why do you need to verify your age to use computer hardware?
They can't stand the idea you'd use it without a social media account. It's Facebook after all.
You shouldn't have to do this and I won't. I'll vote with my dollars and never buy another device from them. It's too bad because I genuinely liked it as well, but it's not worth the invasion of privacy and normalizing sending this type of information to any consumer company.
Because people are naive enough to think the huge privacy compromise will be worth the cost to society in order to protect kids.
The better question is why in 5yrs we will have to use ID to buy a product on some random ecommerce site or to play a video game or use Uber or post a comment on Reddit. It will be because people pushed for this for kids on social media and opened the door for the rest of the internet companies to demand it and therefore the government.
I really hate it when some vague "people" are blamed for this bullshit. those who do -- a minority -- do it only because they've been brainwashed by the relentless public opinion campaign ran jointly by the capital and the governments.
Meta’s primarily builds social experiences. They just had a big lawsuit about underage users and social experiences.
Think of the children … or are your a chomo? Now hand over your papers for access to information and communications more that all the books have been fed into the AI shredder and paper and writing instruments were done away with to save the planet.
Facebook/Meta has a system that decides if it thinks you are lying about your name or if it just isn't sure, if you get flagged for ID verification. These days it might also be because they think you are under 18, but the ID verification system existed long long before age checking.
If you haven't seen it, it's probably because your account is old and they have scraped enough contact lists to believe your name is real.
They recently managed to crack open the bootloader, most of meta stuff can be bypassed now. I despise how it went from a great device to almost a paperweight with just horrible software updates (as it's the norm these days).
oculus didnt ship a single product not owned by facebook.
Correct, but you didn't have to log into the Quest 1 with facebook until ~2024. They had "Oculus accounts" at first.
Pretty sure DK1 shipped pre-acquisition.
DK2 also
Neither qualifies.
That is certainly not true.
I had the Oculus Rift dev kit before they sold to Facebook. It was so amazing at the time
“Dev kit”
You had to pay for it (Kickstarter), so its 100% a product
Non-devs were buying them to play games.
Owner of DK2 here, well before Facebook acquisition. It was for developers, but it was a shipped product nonetheless.
Not really. Pre-release baked into the name.
It’s rather astonishing to me how the vampire squid of world domination has apparently worked out just how to neutralize any sense of self-preservation, and manipulate and gaslight anything into place if they have enough time and are patient.
Everything from “freedom sticks” to get women to breath in smoke and ash like the foolish men, to going from “government IDs are just conspiracy theory” to “you have to show your papers to see information and communicate with other humans on the only method that is still widely possible; it’s all just been slowly salami sliced and microdosed into our societies. Worse yet, still a large chunk of society seem utterly oblivious as long as they can consume their particular customized and personalized opiate of the masses.
The aggressive push for ID verification is a direct result of massive government lawsuits regarding online child safety. As a strict condition of this settlement, Meta is legally mandated to enforce hard age gates.
Plus they already have all that data... Your ID is not private information. It's an identifier that they don't need or want.
Not for allowing you to use your own hardware, what utter nonsense.
It was their choice to forcibly link their hardware to their online account system despite it working fine without it. But it’s absolutely not true that the government requires age verification for using VR goggles.
Yeah, you beat me to this - I laughed at Meta needing any information considering shadow profiles have always existed and every company leaks data like a sieve xD
Facebook was doing ID checks well before this because they want to stop ban evasion.
ID checks just came to the Quest because they forced facebook accounts which already had ID checks on it. They should never have made facebook accounts mandatory for playing games.
I think the causality is a bit mixed up here given Meta have put millions of dollars into child safety lobbying
What's their motive there?
Exactly where I am. Was all-in on Quest 1 and Quest 2, but had to offboard due to Meta's wild policies (that ended up locking me out of my account with little recourse -- some bug with the Oculus standalone account merge with FB and then re-split).
As much as I'm a proponent of VR, I won't play by Meta's rules.
Looks fun, but it'll most probably need a Meta account, won't run open firmware, and most importantly wearing it in public instead of using my MacBook will make me look like an idiot. So: meh.
Although looking like an idiot is probably better than being one of those Meta Glasses perverts
Seeing a person at a coffee shop typing with his fingers on a table and moving his invisible mouse would be…interesting.
I can see value on a plane. But I’d rather use my MacBook then look like a crazy person pretending to work.
I’ve used the Vision Pro in public. I don’t care what people think of me, but I did get annoyed at people tapping me on the shoulder and asking about it.
That's what people used to say about Bluetooth headsets
guess i'm old cuz i still feel like it's weird and antisocial
It's still creepy and weird to have a full conversation on a bluetooth headset in a public place where everyone can overhear your side of it.
Isn’t that the same without a headset?
No, talking into a phone feels more natural than talking to nothing in particular
Better than the people who walk around using speakerphone… which I see at least 3 people do on every trip to the grocery store.
It still seems weird to me when I hear people seemingly talking to themselves as if hallucinating. It always surprises me until I realize what's happening.
I’d mostly be concerned about getting robbed while having my vision obscured.
Luckily they can’t steal your invisible monitor, keyboard and mouse.
It’s HoloLens reinvented I guess.
What problem does it solve? I see a bunch of potential uses but I don’t see any problems looking to be solved.
Will I like gaming better if I control the games with my hands instead of a controller?
Will I like working in my glasses better than my laptop screen? Or even a dual laptop screen like a ZenBook Duo? Or a cheap second portable display? Do these glasses fit better in a backpack than a laptop and a second portable screen? They can’t collapse flat.
Are these glasses more portable and convenient than a smartphone? What are the benefits to watching an NBA game on this compared to a phone or my TV screen at home?
I can’t believe Meta is blowing their money on this stuff still.
From the video they have on their site: watching movies in places where you normally would stare at a tiny screen; they also show folks using virtual floating keyboards in front of a VR desktop to work.
So: no problems solved.
I might consider them if I can wire it to my laptop. I use the meta quest for development because of infinite virtual screens and due to my apartment being so small I can't fit a proper desk and office chair. But still is a very niche usage, if I had space I would very likely get a desk with a dual or triple monitor setup. If the resolution is good, it is actually nice to have a very portable infinite screen setup if you travel a lot.
You can do this already with xreal glasses for like 1/4 of the price
https://us.shop.xreal.com/products/xreal-xbx-a01
Thanks, i will check it out. I think I did a couple years ago but mac os support was bad at the time? I don't quite remember, but this seems great now. Do you have one? Any experience with using it for work on mac os with multiple virtual screens?
It’s terrible.
I’ve always wanted it to be better, but it’s just terrible. It’s like working on a projector screen where the pixels never line up.
I hope one day a version of this becomes mainstream enough that it justifies developing for it. It's the ergonomics that prevent that from happening, and moving toward glasses is one of the most important stepping stones. (though if you saw someone wearing "glasses" like this you would probably say it's stretching the definition of glasses)
When someone gets this right I do think we're all gonna ditch the 2d screens and phones.
It doesn't even matter if it's Meta that instigates this, if money is smelled there will be more consumer friendly alternatives popping up overnight (e.g. see how quickly the industry copied the iPhone).
Meta VR Glasses... and where they will be banned next!
I think I am still going to stick with the Steam Frame lmao
still worried about how much data this thing will collect about you
Upside: the Steam Frame's price is actually pretty competitive now.
I had the oculus rift, sold it when they made me get a Facebook account (they might have backtracked on that). Bought a quest 2 thinking surely they have learned their lesson by now.
Nope.
Some of the decisions they made around ux are so insane I feel like ripping it off and throwing it across the room. I bet there are some properly talented people at meta, but someone senior is committed to making it suck. Wouldn't be surprised if it's zuck himself. So even though I'm passionate about it, I have no VR in my life because I can't afford another one
I can't help but feel like all the tech glasses are basically a way to get more ai training data where they can get like a constant stream of human POV stuff.
The battery life on these devices is way too low for that
It's essentially a cheaper and lighter AVP without the Apple ecosystem. There's nothing revolutionary about this device.
Every time a major tech company comes out with a new headset, I check one thing: Does it have a light field display? (In this case, no it doesn't.) In 5-10 years, headsets are going to be much better. Your eyes will be able to focus on objects like they do in real space and you won't have to deal with the hassle of an external battery.
"lighter" is the revolutionary bit.
A huge impediment to VR uptake is having to go through the process of strapping a brick to one's face.
This isn't quite the "just putting on a pair of glasses" experience, but it's much closer to that than the former.
Its lighter form factor is more evolutionary than revolutionary. The AVP has some unnecessary extras such as the outward-facing display. If Apple wanted, it could make an Apple Vision Air with the latest A-series chip, a much lighter form factor and a much lower price - just like Meta VR Glasses.
If you are going to buy one, this is the platform you support:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1618&v=qp2IbgJ5Z-8
I know you probably know that, but this is a new low, even for Meta.
At the timestamp of the video, after the question she goes in length about the [mind boggling] settlement, limiting to 2h/day for under 18 years old is not too bad?
Yes, not too bad for a question the moderator didn't really ask. She's really good at diverting the topic to a less uncomfortable field. No wonder she's in charge of a platform with 3.07 billion monthly active users. Also note the tone and condescending attitude.
meh all of these mega corps do whatever they can to maximise profit. Apple used slave-like labour from China (or still use depending on who you ask) and turned a blind eye until it could no more. Which to me is worse than what Meta did. But they are not Americans so most don't care around these parts.
Correct, but that's also whataboutism. I know apathy can easily take over, but when you get laughed in the face just like that it feels really hopeless. No, it's not my first day on the internet and no, it's not the first time I see companies act like this, but something about this feels very wrong.
These Meta “VR Glasses” seem suspiciously like AR glasses. They even used an image of a game rendered on an AR screen for their “VR” game section.
Yeah, I'm not sure why they're calling it that. XR glasses, maybe, but not VR if you can't actually have any immersion.
That external compute block it comes with looks pretty chonky...
Glad it's using the Meta XR SDK - it's a closed ecosystem but at least it IS an ecosystem.
The Ray-Ban Metas had no ecosystem. No SDK, no app store, just apps made by Meta. They finally announced an SDK in 2026 but why would I support a device that was so anti-developer for years?
a few things id want from a product like this
1) Blackout. Let me use them as a way to get complete pitch black when i want it 2) Amazing resolution. None of the existing products are good enough to replace my physical screens, but i'd love to. 3) Comfortable. Nothing has been comfortable enough to wear long term. Sure maybe an hour or two, but 8-10 hrs a day for work? Not even close.
Hope they get there someday.
I thought Meta's approach to AR was pivoting towards transparent glasses with displays in the vein of Ray Ban Display and Orion (I realize that "VR" is in the title, but almost all the images show AR use cases). Their original vision for AR was to have people walking around with quest headsets in passthrough mode. But that's just too weird for the vast majority of people. I can't imaging walking around in public and ordering coffee with my eyes totally obscured behind a device. I saw a couple co-workers walking around wearing headsets like this when I worked at Reality Labs, but it was obvious to me and all my teammates that vanishingly few people would actually do that in public.
I guess the approach here is to shrink down the VR glasses and make them look more like normal glasses from a distance. But I still don't think I'd wear one of these walking around the mall or airport. Reduction in FOV is also a big negative. I'm not really sure where one would use this device over a Quest or the Ray Ban Display. It occupies this awkward middle point where it's not a transparent glass display, but it's also makes a lot of compromises compared to the rest of the VR line.
Spring 2027 is eternity in the future from today. I love the concept they advertise but by then, there will be so many amazing products and releases.
If they could give me this today and worked somewhat like they promise, even though for $500 or so I can get glasses that do what I need them to do today, for more fidelity I would gladly pay 1k+ they are asking.
I am not sure what will happen till Spring or Summer next year.
Now when I saw their video... ufff, not for me.
I'm sorry, just no. They look ridiculous.
hmm.. does this mean that the next version of apple vision pro will be spectacular?
Looks like superb hardware, and contrary to many others the use cases this is designed for look actually worth it. "AVP but lighter and cheaper" or "looks designed for trains or planes" . . . well, obviously.
The key problem is it's Meta. People don't even trust other people near them to use Meta hardware, and the way they dealt with Oculus users was just grimy. From basically any other company this would be a very welcome device. Zuckerberg needs to fix the company first, because there's no such thing as a killer product good enough to overcome this hurdle.
After my experience with the Quest 3's software, I'm not really interested in anything Meta. That's ignoring the privacy issues and other issues with Meta as a company.
$1300 for 70° × 66° FOV is pretty awful. Also, I wish they'd stop hyping these devices for productivity when they know the text isn't sharp enough. This will be good for watching stuff and that's about it. Is it good enough at that to justify tethering yourself to a brick? I suspect not for $1300.
I'm in VR a lot, mostly in bigscreen VR, and have had the Quest, Quest 2, and Quest 3. I don't see any reason to upgrade from the latter at all.
Can't wait for literally any other company to make this!
Meta is back with another thing no one asked for
I see Disney+ 3D videos featured pretty heavily on the landing page.
I believe that launched as an Apple exclusive. I wonder if that means the millions of Oculus Quest headsets that have been gathering dust for years will finally have some immersive content worth watching.
Unfortunately, Meta's horrendous privacy policies precludes me from even considering purchasing one of their headsets.
I really hope they’ll care a little more about using this for productivity. I wish the quest 3s would work offline eg. on a plane as my external monitor for my MacBook.
Anyone know the resolution?
I have Xreal airs. And, while, I like them, they’re rather useless because 1080p just isn’t enough.
This as a fully open source device or at least from a company worth trusting would be a great product.
SteamFrame it is! As far as I can tell the SteamFrame lets you install a different OS.
There's plenty of reason to still be skeptical about the future of VR, or Meta's practices, but shoving all of that aside it does look like a big step toward the level of comfort that's going to be needed for VR to succeed. Not at this price point, but it's incremental progress.
With a 70x66 degree FOV, how is that Rogue One footage not false advertising? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyD_bmMy5nQ
Yuck.
I just got swept up in this mass Threads suspension yesterday, despite not using it. I am locked out of Facebook and Messenger, and my Portal, Oculus, and Glasses are now bricked. I pay them $12 for Instagram a month, mostly to deter username thieves, and that was oddly not suspended, despite being linked, so the "safety" claims ring hollow. Be very careful about giving your money to Meta. They are quick to unperson with no recourse.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ThreadsApp/comments/1wnkje9/my_inst...
That is a very shitty situation, but I have to ask... what made you think giving them your money was ever a good idea? I can't imagine buying not one but three physical devices from one of the world's most notorious spyware companies.
I do admire mark's tenacity
I might try it for work if it weren't made by meta.