Meta Connect 2024 live — Quest 3S, Project Orion and all the announcements as they happen

As you can see, if we put the Quest 3 alongside the Quest 3S, you can spot a lot of differences in the overall design between these two headsets.

But the main question is how many of these give the game away on what compromises Meta will make to drive the cost down to the 3S’ $299 price. First, it looks as if the amount of mixed reality sensors across the front is set to decrease in number. How that will impact the user experience, we can’t be sure.

On top of that, this headset does seem to be a bit bulkier in construction compared to the Quest 3 too — probably to house a larger, cheaper display array and lens construction.

However, one interesting new element not found on the standard Quest 3 is that new button underneath the volume switch. It could be the case that we may see an iPhone 16-esque Action button that could be programmed to any function.

For more, we’ve done a comparison between the two options based on the leaks and rumors we’ve all seen so far!

Earlier this year, we were wowed by GPT-4o and its Advanced Voice Mode — allowing you to have significantly more natural, free-flowing conversations with AI.

Well with Connect nearly here and significant announcements around Meta AI being touted, could this be the time we something similar to this coming to the various models underpinning the company’s bigger efforts?

This could be huge for using your Ray-Bans on-the-go — giving more natural prompts to find out more about the world around you or taking more direct action on your behalf as agentic AI. The possibilities are endless.

Of course, Connect 2024 is going to be about a lot of big things, but some small but significant developments look set to be announced. One key one has been leaked ahead of the event, which shows we may be getting an overhaul to Meta Avatars.

Reported by UploadVR, a new pop-up appears when editing your avatar in the Meta Horizon mobile app, which tells you that these new-look avatars are “landing soon.” This is a very strong indicator that we’ll see these at Connect — roughly a year later than was promised by the Zuck. But hey! Better late than never!

I’m hoping Quest 3S gets Travel Mode — it’s a game changer!

Travel mode on Quest 3 is something I got to test recently during my trip to Computex. And while I can’t speak for the improvements that came to the Apple Vision Pro’s equivalent mode in visionOS 2, at the time, Meta stood head and shoulders above the Cupertino crew with its implementation.

From the rigid anchoring of windows and recognition of surfaces even under turbulence on this 15-hour flight, to the capabilities of what you could actually do offline, it makes any flight go by in a flash and I hope it comes to the 3S too!

Leaks are very commonplace for our industry, and Meta ended up seeing its new low-cost headset revealed this way too. The Quest 3S was accidentally posted on the Meta Store (then deleted), and most recently, an Amazon ad went live too early.

What these things showed us were the design you see above, a bit of a peek at the specs (basically, the same Snapdragon XR2 chipset but with a weaker display and smaller battery), and a $299 price.

That last one would be huge for getting more people to jump into Mixed Reality!

What about Project Orion?

Yes, the picture I’m using here is of the RayNeo Air 2s, but this will just be setting the standard for just how much of a leapfrog concept Project Orion would be. 

Simply put, think of the Ray-Bans but with an AR display and wireless connectivity to give you that blend of digital and physical. There’s been a lot of buzz, and with the successes Meta is seeing in mixed reality headsets and glasses infused with AI for a display-free augmented reality, the Zuck and co could be in the best position to make something big of these.

There’s a lot of rumblings about Meta AI getting some big upgrades at Connect, and these should be coming to the glasses too. We could see these become the ultimate piece of AI hardware if the Zuck announces 5 key things! 

I made my wishlist over here.

Welcome to the blog!

Welcome to the Meta Connect 2024 live blog! We’re kicking off a little early to go through some details of what to expect!

First off, the Meta Quest 3S. This cheaper headset should replace the Meta Quest 2 (we’ve seen this older headset go out of stock everywhere), and the price looks set to be $299.