While Meta Connect 2024 didn’t have any big high-end products to show off for the holiday season, it did include a new budget VR headset and a tease of the “magic glasses” that Meta’s XR experts have been talking about for nearly a decade. Plus, the company continues to develop new AI tools for its Ray-Ban glasses and social platforms. Here’s everything the company announced at Meta Connect 2024.
Orion AR Glasses
Meta
Today’s best mixed reality devices are headsets with pass-through video capabilities, like Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3. But the tech industry eventually wants to pack the technology into something akin to prescription glasses. We’ll leave it to you to decide whether the Orion AR glasses, pictured above, pass that test, but they certainly come closer to passing than any other full-fledged AR device we’ve seen so far.
First, the bad news: These new products won’t be coming this year, and there’s no official launch date. A leaked roadmap last year suggested they’d be available in 2027. But Meta said Wednesday that Orion will be available in the “near future,” so it’s up to you to interpret that as. Meta said the full-scale product prototype is “a true representative of what we could ship to consumers,” not a research device that’s decades away from shipping.
The glasses contain a miniature projector that projects holograms onto the lenses. Meta describes the glasses as having a wide field of view and an immersive feel. Sensors can track voice, gaze, hand tracking, and electromyography (EMG) wristband input.
The glasses combine sensory input with AI capabilities — Meta gave the example of looking inside your fridge and asking the onboard AI to spit out a recipe based on the ingredients — and they’ll also support video calling, messaging features on Meta’s platform, and spatial versions of the Spotify, YouTube, and Pinterest apps.
Meta
This year’s new VR headsets are focused on the entry level, not early adopters looking for cutting-edge tech. The Meta Quest 3S is the $300 little brother of last year’s Quest 3, cutting the entry price over the higher-end model in exchange for cheaper lenses, reduced resolution, and less storage.
The headset has a Fresnel lens familiar to Quest 2 owners, instead of the high-end pancake lens of the Quest 3. The resolution is 1,832 x 1,920 (20 pixels per degree), lower than the 2,064 x 2,208 (25 PPD) on the Quest 3. Meta says the lower-priced model also has a slightly narrower field of view.
The Quest 3S has just 128GB of storage, which can fill up quickly if you install some of the platform’s biggest games, but you can bump that up to a more substantial 256GB if you’re willing to shell out $400. (Alongside this announcement, Meta also cut the price of the 512GB Quest 3 from $650 to $500.)
The headset may also outlast the Quest 3 in terms of battery life, with Meta estimating the Quest 3S to last 2.5 hours, compared with 2.2 hours for the Quest 3.
If you order a headset, you’ll get a special Bat-bonus: If you order a Quest 3S (and Quest 3) between now and April 2025, you’ll get a free copy of Batman: Arkham Shadow, the VR action game due out next month.
The Quest 3S is available to preorder now, with shipments starting October 15th.
Throw away the old
To celebrate the launch of the Meta Quest 3S, Meta is discontinuing two older models: the Quest 2 and Quest Pro, which will be discontinued by the end of the year. The company says they will continue to be available until inventory runs out or until the end of the year, whichever comes first.
The company now sees the Quest 3S as the new lower-priced model with far superior mixed reality capabilities, making the $200 Quest 2 no longer relevant. The Quest Pro, which didn’t receive much traction with consumers, has an inferior camera and pass-through video than the two Quest 3-tier models. The Pro launched two years ago as a metaverse-centric device, at a time when the industry was pushing the word “AI” as hard as it is now. The headset launched at a steep $1,500 price, later dropping to $1,000.
Sam Rutherford (Engadget)
While the hardware remains the same, Meta adds new AI capabilities to the tech-packed sunglasses: Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses will come with an updated AI assistant.
The Assistant can now set reminders based on what you see, for example, you can set an alert for something you saw at the library by saying, “Hey Meta, remind me to buy that book next Monday.” The Glasses can also scan QR codes and dial phone numbers from recognized text.
Meta’s assistant should also respond to more natural commands. You’ll be less likely to need to remember the formal prompt to launch the assistant (“Hey Meta, look and tell me”); you’ll be able to use more casual phrases like “What are you looking at?” The AI will also be able to handle more complex follow-up questions, making conversation with the robot friend who lives in your sunglasses more seamless.
Meta says the glasses’ live translation has also been improved: Last year’s version struggled to translate longer pieces of text, but the company says the software now translates larger pieces of text more effectively. Live translation will be available in English, French, Italian, and Spanish by the end of 2024.
Meta
The company says Met AI now supports voice chat, a feature that has existed for some time but was limited to Ray-Ban glasses.
Meta has also partnered with celebrities to engage customers with their chatbot. Yes, folks, you can now hear Meta’s chatbot respond in the dulcet voice of the one and only John Cena. Other celebrity voices include Dame Judi Dench, Awkwafina, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kristen Bell.
Meta’s AI can now edit photos using text prompts to perform tasks like adding or removing objects, changing details like the background, outfit, etc. AI photo editing will be available across Meta’s social apps including Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
Meanwhile, Meta’s Llama 3.2 AI model introduces vision capabilities, which can analyze and describe images, competing with similar capabilities from ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.
Catch up on all the news from Meta Connect 2024!
