Industry insider Mark Gurman — in his newsletter Power On — just revealed that sources have informed him about how much these glasses will cost. Though initial estimates a few weeks back ranged around the $1,400 mark, the real answer is apparently just about $800.
That is, in my opinion, an absolutely stellar price, especially in an industry where the Apple Vision Pro costs $3,499. According to Gurman, Meta is employing the same strategy that it made use of to make its Quest VR headsets so popular: accepting lower profits to capitalize on an emerging industry.
For example, the Meta Quest 3 starts at $499, which is only around 14 percent of the cost of Apple’s headset. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is convinced that AR smart glasses are the future of computing and will replace smartphones, so the company has invested billions into VR.
However, it’s worth noting that these new smart glasses aren’t actually true Augmented Reality. The glasses will only have a singular, tiny display for using mini apps and receiving notifications, in addition to a few other use cases.
These glasses are a bridge between the display-free smart glasses of today, and the full AR smart glasses of tomorrow, like the Meta Orion shown off last year. It’s also worth noting that a consumer version of Orion will almost certainly not cost as low as $800, as the technology is very complex to manufacture.
With Meta’s upcoming glasses, you’ll finally be able to experience the vision that Zuckerberg has: a world where you don’t have to take out your phone all the time. Similar products, especially by Xreal (with proper AR too!), already let you do this, but I’m hoping that Meta’s offering will kickstart more competition in this space.
