Meta is hosting its annual Connect developer conference next week, where it will showcase a range of anticipated and perhaps surprising VR and AR news — as well as what could be a major Meta AI conference featuring the company’s latest Llama language model and an image generator for apps like WhatsApp.
And as Meta retires custom AR filter tools, we could end up seeing a whole modern set of developer tools designed to leverage generative AI experiences. Perhaps this will all come together in Meta’s next massive foray into alternate reality ideas (and namesake) in the metaverse, including significant updates to Horizon Worlds.
The most anticipated products to come out of the conference, however, are a successor to the Meta Quest 3 and possibly updates to the Meta and Raybans, which are both very frosty clever glasses. Hopefully, we’ll see the rumored “Orion” AR glasses, but we’ll have to watch the Connect presentation to find out.
Meta’s Connect Developer Conference kicks off this year Wednesday, September 25, 2024and will end the next day on Thursday, September 26. The conference will begin with the Connect keynote, headlined by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, at 6:00 p.m. 1:00 PM Eastern Time / 10:00 AM Pacific Timefollowed immediately by a developer showcase at 2:00 PM Eastern Time/11:00 AM Pacific Time. The meta has Full program schedule on Connect website.
The Meta Connect lecture will be broadcast live on Meta Connect Official Website. If you are a Quest headset user, you can also watch on Horizon Worlds. After the lectures, you can attend live developer sessions to deepen your knowledge of AI and mixed reality on Facebook.
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The most electrifying thing about the Meta is that it holds the keys to what’s closest thing to a mainstream VR headset with the Quest 2 and Quest 3. The latter, however, started out at a too-high price ($500 compared to the Quest 2, which now costs $200) and didn’t have a very edged AR video transition. Now we’re expecting a cheaper version, the Quest “3S,” which could sell for as little as $299.99, according to leaks.
Meta also has other modern VR headsets in the works, including a modern Quest 4 due in 2026 and something professional-level designed for spatial computing, internally dubbed “La Jolla,” due in 2027. Recent reports suggest that plans for the latter may be on hold, especially since Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro is fighting to gain popularityWe may not see these models specifically on the Connect platform, but other models in the pipeline may appear.
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Expect an update on Ray-Ban’s futuristic Meta clever glasses on Connect as well. The current glasses look neat and uncluttered, but they’re ripe for an iterative update, even if no AR features arrive. The glasses respond to your commands using Meta AI, so expect modern chatbot assistant experiences on the way.
Meta is also working on modern mixed reality glasses, internally dubbed “Orion,” which we can expect to see at least in the first place. Snap recently let us wear its modern AR Spectacles, but they’re exclusive to developers, and a former Snap engineer who worked on the project called them “obviously bad.” Hopefully, what we see in Orion will be a lot more compelling.
With Meta’s VR strategy comes expectations for modern software and experiences, including the future of games on Quest. Now, questions are being asked about what Meta is doing for games: it’s closing down the game studio Ready at Dawn, which made immersive 3D games like EchoVRwhile casual games like Wordle are becoming increasingly popular. Meanwhile, Meta recently launched an app that lets you play console games on a headset via HDMI.
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