Meta announced and launched pre-orders for its Meta 2 AR headset dev kit more than a year ago, and expected to begin shipping the device at the end of 2016. While the company says a small number of headsets have indeed gone out the door, Meta acknowledged in May that manufacturing delays had prevented a bulk of pre-orderers from getting their headsets in a timely fashion. A recent update from the company suggests that shipping quantities will pick up in August.
Update (7/30/17): Since offering a vague “soon” timeframe for when shipping of the Meta 2 AR dev kit would pick up beyond the “limited quantities” mentioned back in May, an update to the FAQ on the company’s pre-order page for the headset notes that “Volume shipping will occur in mid Q3 2017,” which would fall in the month of August.
Original Article (5/26/17): Although the company says they expect to deliver an impressive 10,000 Meta 2 headsets this year, the rollout has been slower than they would have liked. “Small batches” and “limited quantities” has been about the only detail the company would give us on how their shipping process was coming along, but now a new entry published to the company’s official blog offers a brief video update concerning the holdup.
“The number one topic my customer success team has been receiving over the past couple months is ‘when will my headset ship?’,” says Meta’s Senior Director of Customer Success, Gary Garcia. Not surprising, I would say, as I’m not sure what other questions you might ask prior to actually having the hardware.
Garcia says that things started off well but the company eventually ran into issues as they tried to scale up their manufacturing and processing procedures. He says the company has doubled the size of their manufacturing floor as they have tackled the issues.
Aside from acknowledging the delays, the company doesn’t offer any specifics about how many headsets have actually shipped at this point, and offers only a vague update on when developers can expect their headsets.
“Soon headsets will be rolling off the manufacturing line in greater volume.”