Meta Quest Professional wasn’t actually the prosumer hit it was chalked as much as be, main the corporate to discontinue its first combined actuality headset a bit of over two years after launch. Now Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman studies Meta just isn’t solely engaged on an ostensible Quest 3 shopper follow-up, but additionally a “high-end” mannequin that would succeed Quest Professional.
In Gurman’s weekly e-newsletter, he rounds up a variety of latest XR information, from Meta presumably together with a show in its subsequent Ray-Ban Meta Good Glasses to studies of Apple winding down Imaginative and prescient Professional manufacturing amid decreased demand for the $3,500 headset.
Citing insider sources, Gurman additionally reported that Meta is “engaged on Quest 4 VR goggles, in addition to a brand new high-end mannequin that would ultimately develop into a successor to the Quest Professional mixed-reality headset.”
Launched in late 2022, Quest Professional marked a major departure from Meta’s line of shopper standalone headsets, which, on the time, ranged across the $300 mark.
Initially priced at $1,500, the ‘Professional’ stage headset supplied a number of options over its concurrent Quest 2, corresponding to color-passthrough, pancake lenses, and each face and eye-tracking. Lower than 5 months later although, Meta decreased the worth of Quest Professional to $1,000 in an effort to draw extra prosumers.
Then, in July 2023, The Info launched a report claiming Meta was discontinuing the Quest Professional line completely, which Meta CTO and Actuality Labs chief Andrew Bosworth was fast to contest, stating “don’t consider every thing you learn.”
An extra report from The Info from July 2024 urged Meta was switching its ‘Professional’ efforts to as an alternative develop a light-weight combined actuality system resembling “a cumbersome pair of glasses,” codenamed ‘Puffin’—reportedly set to focus on a 2027 launch date. This comes along with Meta’s declare it’s hoping to launch a pair of AR glasses earlier than 2030 which shall be related in performance to its Orion AR glasses prototype.
A follow-up report from The Info launched shortly afterwards additional claimed a Quest Professional 2 prototype, codenamed ‘La Jolla’, had additionally been shelved. Bosworth later went on file to verify that it certainly cancelled La Jolla, and is creating Puffin, though didn’t make point out of whether or not the corporate was abandoning its Quest Professional line for good.
– – — – –
Meta’s iterative strategy to product growth includes spinning up and shutting down prototypes, which Bosworth has outlined up to now as a method the corporate prioritizes exploration over quick commercialization. The place tasks, like Quest Professional 2 and others, presently are on that continuum is a thriller, making it troublesome to inform whether or not reported stops and begins are literally stepping stones or lifeless ends, respectively.
While refuting the sooner declare that the Quest Professional line was cancelled, Bosworth famous “there is perhaps a Quest Professional 2, there won’t be. I’m not likely telling you, however I’ll say don’t consider every thing you examine what’s been stopped or began.”
