Today, Meta unveiled the result of many years of research and development – its first-ever AR glasses called the Orion. Additionally, the company is launching a cheaper version of the Quest 3 VR goggles. There is also a new pair of Ray-Ban glasses. That sounds awesome, but the Orion is just a prototype and won’t be sold to consumers, so let’s start with the new Quest.
Meta Quest 3S
The Meta Quest 3S is a more affordable version of the Quest 3. Actually, it’s more of a mix between the Quest 2 and 3 to keep the price down. If you prefer the older, more capable model, you will be pleased to hear that prices are dropping (more on that in a bit).
The 3S starts at $300, but it uses the same Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset as the regular Quest 3 with the same 8GB of RAM. And it has the same color passthrough that was a major upgrade from the Quest 2 (it uses a 4MP camera to bring the real world in for AR experiences). So, what was cut to save costs?
Instead of dual LCDs, the 3S uses a single LCD with slightly lower resolution per eye (1,832 x 1,920px vs. 2,064 x 2,208px). The new LCD still offers fast 90Hz and 120Hz refresh rates, however, it lacks the 72Hz and 80Hz options (these come in handy when using PCVR, for example, as dropping the refresh rate helps to increase the render resolution).
Perhaps more importantly, the slender pancake lens of the Quest 3 was replaced by the old Fresnel lens of the Quest 2. This reduces the field of view to 96° horizontal and 90° vertical, compared to 110° and 96°.
The 3S weighs essentially the same (514g instead of 515g) but has slightly better battery life at 2 hours and 30 minutes (vs. 2 hours 12 minutes). This is despite having a smaller battery (4,324mAh vs. 5,060mAh).
The Meta Quest 3S has two memory capacities, 128GB and 256GB. You will find the prices below. Meanwhile, the price of the 512GB Quest 3 has been reduced, so that remains an option too, if you want the superior display experience.
| Meta Quest 3S | 128GB | 256GB |
|---|---|---|
| US | $300 | $400 |
| Canada | C$400 | C$550 |
| UK | £290 | £380 |
| EU | €330 | €440 |
| Australia | A$500 | A$670 |
| Meta Quest 3 | 128GB | 512GB |
| US | $430 | $500 |
| Canada | C$580 | C$680 |
| UK | £410 | £470 |
| EU | €480 | €550 |
| Australia | A$800 | A$1,050 |
Meta Orion
“Orion has the largest field of view in the smallest AR glasses form to date” is the elevator pitch for these glasses. Note that while they kind of look like the Ray-Ban Stories, these are proper AR glasses with a pair of holographic displays and 3D mapping that can put virtual objects into the real world.
The Meta Orion glasses are suitable for indoor and outdoor use. The company says that they are lightweight and have “large” holographic displays, but doesn’t get into more details.
The holographic displays are transparent – you can see through them and people around you can see your eyes. There’s no need for an external display trickery that a certain Cupertino-based company had to resort to.
However, these displays are also capable of drawing color graphics. This could be as simple as virtual displays hovering in the air or as complex as tapping into the contextual Meta AI to recognize objects and tag them with additional info. In one demo, Meta showed foodstuff on a counter, the glasses recognized them, tagged them and offered a potential recipe to make with them.
Meta says that to make Orion compact and stylish, it had to pack components as tightly as possible, down to fractions of a millimeter. And while these are the most advanced AR glasses yet, they still need polish. ”Rather than rushing to put it on shelves, we decided to focus on internal development first, which means we can keep building quickly and continue to push the boundaries of the technology, helping us arrive at an even better consumer product faster,” writes Meta.
Starting today, Meta employees and select external audiences will have access to the Orion prototype. This will help the team learn and improve to build a consumer product that will ship “in the near future”.
Before that happens, Meta wants to improve the display quality, to shrink the hardware even further and to figure out how to build these at scale so that the finished product will be affordable to consumers.
Ray-Ban Meta
Today also brings a new version of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. These are more of a head-mounted camera and AI assistant, unlike the Orion.
Meta AI is now smarter and you only need to summon it once with “Hey Meta”, you don’t have to say it for every question. The glasses can also help you remember things – they can remember where you parked your car, for example. You can also use voice prompts to set reminders or to send voice messages to WhatsApp and Messenger users.
The new Ray-Ban Meta
Meta has partnered with Be My Eyes, a free app that connects sighted volunteers who want to help blind or low-vision people. The glasses will stream a POV video and the volunteer can help guide the user.
Meta has partnered with Audible and iHeart to give you more things to listen to while using the glasses. Also, it has improved the existing integration with Spotify and Amazon Music.
If you want something more exclusive, Meta is launching the Shiny Transparent Wayfarer frames. Additionally, it has brought over Luxottica’s new UltraTransitions GEN S lenses, which adapt to varying lighting conditions.
Ray-Ban Meta Shiny Transparent edition • UltraTransitions lenses
The new Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer glasses start at $300 and go up to $430 for the Shiny Transparent edition with UltraTransitions lenses.