Heavy: Meta's roadmap for the next 4 years was exposed, and Quest shipped more than 20 million units

The Verge today exposed a Meta internal AR/VR product roadmap, which is the internal sharing of Meta executives for Reality Labs employees, including a large number of AR/VR product information, let's take a look at it together.

First, the next four years planning

Meta Reality Labs' four-year plan:

1, 2023, release Quest 3, thinner and lighter than Quest 2, the price will be slightly higher than Quest 2. And like the Quest Pro, it supports VST color perspective;

2, In 2023, the second generation of Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses will be released; @青亭网整理

3, in 2024, the VR headset codenamed Ventura will be released, which will focus on cost performance;

4, in 2024, the first AR glasses codenamed Orion will be released for employee beta;

5, In 2025, the third generation of Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses will be released, which will add a reality module for the first time, which can view mobile phone text messages, camera shooting and translation and other functions. The product will be equipped with a smartwatch based on the neural interface;

6, 2027, release the official version of AR glasses codenamed Orion, positioning high-end and integrating a large number of cutting-edge technologies.

Two, about Quest 3

At the same time, Mark Rabkin, vice president of Meta VR, revealed that up to now, the Meta Quest series of VR headsets has shipped more than 20 million units.

Quest 3 exposure image

Regarding Quest 3, Mark Rabkin, vice president of Meta VR, also touched on the following points:

One of the challenges with the Quest 3, codenamed Stinson, is that it will be a bit more expensive than the Quest 2, so we have to get VR enthusiasts excited about the product and have to prove to the outside world that these new features are worth the money.

MR (based on color perspective) will be the main selling point of the Quest 3. The team's main goal is to make MR mixed reality features feel natural and good from the moment you put on your VR headset. You can move around the room easily and naturally because you still have good perspective [in VR], you can add tracking anchors to the desktop in the room, and you can pick up the coffee cup directly.

3, with the release of Quest 3, 41 new applications and games will be launched simultaneously, and these contents will mainly focus on MR functions.

Third, the Quest 2 puzzle

Regarding Quest 2, one of the conundrums facing Meta right now is the difficulty of retaining new users.

Mark Rabkin mentioned that now in the third year since the release of Quest 2, the more pessimistic point is that recent players who bought Quest 2 (including those who bought during the Christmas holidays) no longer enjoy it as much as the first batch of players who bought Quest 2.

Quest 2

To this end, Meta plans to further increase the humanized design of the content ecology, such as redesigning the Quest store, including dynamic presentation schemes, allowing developers to set their own discount promotions and other measures.

Mark Rabkin said: We need to work on user growth, user retention, user activity, and also social to make this content more intuitive, more reliable, and people trust it more (these VR use cases).

Fourth, follow-up VR headset iterations

In addition, Mark Rabkin mentioned that a new VR headset codenamed Ventura will be launched in 2024, and the new product will focus on price/performance. In his original words: "At the most attractive price, greatly impact the consumer VR market".

After Ventura, Meta's plan is to develop an extremely high-end VR headset, codenamed "La Jolla", and although Mark Rabkin did not disclose the release date of the second-generation Quest Pro, this product is more like an iteration of the Quest Pro. One of the features of La Jolla is that it will have a very realistic avatar solution.

Mete plans to provide La Jolla with higher resolution to meet office needs, such as more detailed text display for word processing needs.

Mark Rabkin said that one of the possible solutions to further improve the comfort of the Quest Pro series is to reduce the weight of the headset through discrete rendering, such as putting the computing power outside the VR headset.

Fifth, Ray-Ban smart glasses and smart watches

It is reported that Meta currently has thousands of employees involved in the research and development of AR glasses and related products, including AR glasses and external tracking control equipment.

The first generation of Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses

Alex Himel, vice president of Meta AR business, mentioned in an internal sharing that the second generation of Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses will be released this fall, still equipped with a camera, and the third generation of Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses will be released in 2025.

Among them, the third-generation Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses will add a display module for the first time, which can be used to check the SMS notification of the mobile phone, or take photos through the camera, and realize foreign language translation in reality.

In addition, along with the third-generation Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses, there is also a smart watch, which is based on neural signals (basically the EMG EMG control scheme that Meta has advertised many times before), which can be used to operate the glasses and achieve the same typing speed as in reality.

Alex Himel has confirmed that it has canceled plans to develop a smartwatch, but the smartwatch released in 2025 is another one, and it is intended to be used with AR glasses.

Alex Himel said: We don't want users to choose between their own smartwatch and our smart wristband, so we went straight to developing a smartwatch with an integrated neural interface.

And Alex Himel showed the use cases of smart glasses and smart watches inside. Among them, the smart watch has a camera that can directly capture the wearer's footage for video calls.

The smartwatch will be available as a premium optional accessory, and it can also be integrated with Meta's social apps, supporting more social scenarios, fitness tracking, and more.

High-end AR glasses codenamed Orion

In addition to these products, the AR glasses code-named Orion will be the highlight of Meta, which will be a high-priced, integrated with a lot of cutting-edge technology, and has been in internal research and development for 8 years.

It is reported that the Orion product line will be the first to release an "employee beta" in 2024, which, as the name suggests, can only be provided to Meta employees for testing. The official version will be released by 2027.

Seventh, AR glasses will also rely on advertising to make money

Alex Himel mentioned: "With 2 billion pairs of ordinary glasses sold worldwide and hundreds of millions of smart watches sold every year, our devices have a lot of room for growth, and we believe that these products can enter the iteration cycle of existing devices.

In addition, there will still be advertising models in AR/VR in the future, and Meta also plans to make money through advertising models, such as adding virtual product sales and cloud backup services.

Alex Himel also mentioned that we can run the AR/VR advertising business very well, for example, when you wear AR glasses, the ad will appear in the air, and our tracking conversion rate will be close to 100%. If this scenario meets expectations, it will be a huge business, completely different from the advertising services seen on smartphones today.