According to a report from The Information citing two Meta employees, Meta has canceled its plans for a premium mixed-reality headset. It seems the company told Reality Lab employees to halt work on the product this week after executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, reviewed the project.
It’s uncertain whether the device was destined to be a sequel to the Meta Quest Pro or a completely new product, but it’s clear that developing a competitor for the Apple Vision Pro was the purpose of the project.
Some sources report that Meta wanted to keep the cost of its headset below $1,000, but it proved impossible given the current price of the micro-OLED displays it wanted to use — that’s the same tech inside the Vision Pro. The two employees also say the project began in November 2023, just a few months after the Vision Pro was announced.
Considering Quest Pro is now discontinued and Vision Pro sales don’t seem to be doing very well, it’s possible Meta simply decided the market doesn’t want another expensive headset right now. The company is only abandoning this particular mixed-reality project, however, and plans for the Quest 4 are reportedly still on track for a 2026 release.
It’s a shame that we can’t all have ultra-high-definition headsets right now, but display tech always comes down in price over time, so perhaps in a few years, micro-OLEDs will be the norm for VR. As for the spatial computing and productivity side of things, it’s clear that headsets need to get significantly lighter and more comfortable before people can truly consider wearing them for hours a day while they work.
Meta might have canceled plans for a commercial product for now, but hopefully, its teams will keep working on the research needed to make these developments happen.
