According to a report by The Information, Meta plans to release four new VR headsets by 2024, and that’s purportedly in addition to its AR devices.

The Information reporters Sylvia Varnham O’Regan and Mathew Olson say they’ve seen an internal roadmap that shows an aggressive rollout of new VR headsets by Meta.

“By 2024,” the report says, the company plans to launch four new headsets. The report specifically says these are “virtual reality headsets” (though this could well include mixed reality headsets using passthrough AR) and indicates the four new devices are separate from the AR headsets that Meta is also developing.

The first of Meta’s four new headsets will be Project Cambria, which the report says is expected in September of this year.

We already know a bit about Project Cambria as the company officially teased the headset last year and a handful of leaks have filled in some details. According to The Information‘s report, the headset is likely to be priced at $800.

Update (May 2nd, 2022 – 4:24PM PT): Meta confirmed that the actual price of Project Cambria will be “significantly higher” than the $800 price stated by The Information’s report.

An unofficial rendering of Project Cambria based on leaked info | Image courtesy SadlyItsBradley

And a follow-up to Cambria is already in the works, according to the report; codenamed Funston, which is expected in 2024.

As for the other two headsets, those are the next-gen iterations of Meta’s more affordable Quest 2 headset, reportedly codenamed Stinson and Cardiff, with an expected release in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

But what features the headsets beyond Cambria will be target is still somewhat unclear. It’s too early for headsets built around some of the radical changes in compute architecture that Meta believes is necessary to take XR devices to the next level, or the holographic folded optics it’s been researching, though maybe the varifocal tech Meta has been working on for years is nearly ready for primetime. And what of those two headsets the company teased late last year?

SEE ALSO
Veteran VR Studio nDreams Announces Layoffs Amid "challenging VR games market"

As ever, only time will tell, but it looks like Meta’s increasingly steep investments in XR are ramping up the pace for the company’s headset releases.

Check out the original report by The Information for more details.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • xyzs

    My grand kids will be lucky when the Meta gen 2 is rolling out.

  • kool

    I’m guessing the quest 3 with the xr3 chip is Stinson and a cheaper cloud based 5g wifi6 streaming headset is Cardiff.

  • wotever99ninynine

    Boo

  • guest

    Meta investments indeed. Near infinite profits ahead. I can’t wait!

  • NL_VR

    Cambria
    Quest 2 refresh
    Quest 3
    Cambria 2
    Or what do you think

    • What do you mean: “Quest 2 refresh” …??
      Cambria: 2022
      Quest 3: 2023
      Cambria 2: 2024
      Quest 4: 2024
      Those in the know say *that’s* the order.
      And yes: that’s *two* AIOs in 2024 ….

      • NL_VR

        One year between Quest 3 and 4 yes it can be that also.
        I think there will be a Quest with a “new/refresh XR2 soc”.
        The later Quest after that will have a “XR3” SoC
        So they should release it as Quest 2 pro or something and let the Quest 3 have the New generation.

      • Tiki

        Quest 4 is not likeley, but I hope Quest 3 in 2023 not 2024. Although it would be quite stupid to publish a pro-device one year after the budget variant with the same soc.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      I’d pretty much agree. Some more detailed speculation:

      Cambria 2022:
      – XR2 with better cooling and higher clock rates
      – Increased resolution, probably 2.5K
      – Pancake lenses
      – Eye and face tracking for VR conferencing
      – Better ergonomics, battery pack at the back of the head for balance
      – more RAM to support unoptimized business applications and multitasking, saving developer time in apps with low user counts
      – advanced hand controllers

      Quest 2 refresh 2023:
      – faster XR2 similar to Cambria
      – increased solution, probably 2.5K too. The XR2 is too slow to drive this, so it will need some kind of smart upscaling.
      – still using cheap Fresnel lenses, possibly slightly improved, even though Carmack mentioned that these are the main limiting factor for improving resolution when not looking straight forward
      – Eye and face tracking for VR conferencing
      – probably the same cheap headstrap as Quest 2, or maybe Elite strap as default
      – RAM and flash similar to Quest 2
      – Quest 2 hand controllers
      – price USD 500-600

      This would be the enthusiasts HMD, a slight improvement over the Quest 2, but probably subsidized in a similar way. Carmack also mentioned that the Pancake lenses are very expensive and thus limit how cheap a budget HMD can be build, while the eye and face tracking hardware is basically a few cheap IR cameras and LEDs. So the visual fidelity would be better on Cambria at the same resolution. The current state of eye tracking seems not to grant big performance benefits from foveated rendering, so this is mostly interesting for the VRChat crowd.

      Quest 3 2024:
      – XR3
      – other Hardware similar to Quest 2 refresh, incl. 2.5K and fresnel lenses
      – RAM/flash similar or slightly better to Quest 2
      – cheap head strap
      – similar price as Quest 2
      – replaces Quest 2

      This is still the main line and will be what 80% or more will buy, the device for growing the VR user base, heavily subsidized.

      Cambria 2 2024:
      – XR3
      – Increased resolution, might be even higher than 3K. The XR3 will still be to slow to drive Quest games at that resolution, so it would be sort of wasted in a consumer device, but would be very useful for displaying e.g. document and actually readable thanks to the expensive pancake lenses
      – other details similar to Cambria, maybe slightly improve
      – whatever new feature Meta Reality Labs deems usable, but too expensive for the consumer Quest 3
      – price (slightly) lower than Cambria due to reduced production costs and Meta’s desire to address a wider market, unless they include something new and expensive
      – replaces Cambria

      All this would probably mean that the Qualcomm XR3 will only be released in 2024, meaning the XR SoCs are refreshed every four generations of mobile SoC. The XR1 was based on the SD820 (announced 2015, released 2016), XR2 on SD865 (announced 2019, released 2020). The XR 3 would then be based on an SD8Gen3 (announced 2023, released 2024).

      Please be aware that I have no information regarding this, it is just derived from Meta squeezing four models into the next two years. They are the main customer for the XR SoC, so they will get it first. If the XR3 would become available, neither the Quest 2 refresh in 2023 nor the XR2 based Cambria in 2022 would make a lot of sense.

      • Kraut

        Cambria 2022 is said to have 2160×2160

      • brandon9271

        Even the best fresnel lenses are trash. I’d pay a premium to do away with them

  • ApocalypseShadow

    Sounds good if the tech improves greatly on each one. Giving reason on why they exist in the business and consumer sector.

    If they’re just popping them out like cellphones with incremental improvements and just flooding the market, that would be a waste. Especially when the things that are needed the most are content and productivity.

    Computers and cellphones rose in popularity because of both. If they are successful at providing both, then great as there would be entertainment and productivity. Flooding to kill competition? Not so much.

    • Mikael Korpinen

      The lack of content and how hard it is to create it is the biggest problem.
      Why would I want to buy new glasses just to play the same games?

      If the content doesn’t improve nobody wants to buy those glasses.
      Except for better quality adult entertainment videos

  • 4 headsets in 2 years seems like.. a lot, maybe it’s a plan to answer an eventual competitor entering the market

    • Kraut

      3 years

      • Anastasia Mitchell

        I get paid $98 per hour to do a regular job at home.~kk380~I never thought this was possible, after all one of my closest friends made $25k in just 3 weeks doing this side job He made me join.~kk380~See this page for more information.
        —->>>> http://glo­.­wf/jOd3F

      • Zelda Gutierrez

        Working online from home and earning more than $15,000 simply doing easy work. (MPB839) last month I made and received $17915 from this job by doing easy work part-time. Go to this web and follow the instructions.

        – – – – >>>> https://­r­q­.­f­y­i/OCd35q
        *******************************************************

  • Yeah, because Google Stadia works SO WELL, demanding two to four times the performance of that hot mess is easily possible with today’s Internet.

  • brandon9271

    I just want a Quest 2-like device with larger FOV that ditches the godawful fresnel lenses!

  • JakeDunnegan

    I don’t think “cloud” based is that far off. When you consider what nVidia is capable of now, they’ve made effective game streaming for years. It just took an accident, like Virtual Desktop (which has been around now for 6 years) to show companies like Meta and Steam where the path to getting wireless headsets lay.

    It’s not like you have to pack the processing power of an i7 and a GTX3080ti into a headset, and enough RAM (like a couple of terabytes of NVME, and another 16-32 of DDR4 or 5…)

    No, you don’t need any of that. You just need capable streaming technology, with enough cache, and response times to make it usable. You can also double that up with other games locally (which the Quest 2 does effectively, and the next generation will be even better).

    However, the model that Google (with Stadia) and Amazon (with whatever crap they’ve released this week) is NOT how this is going to work. (Briefly, Stadia’s model sucks b/c you have to repurchase games you already own, and they have a limited selection, and Amazon’s is worse.)

    As I mention above, it was the community that came up with the solution for Meta and they followed it kicking and screaming (releasing Airlink for free last year).

    And it’s not “cloud” based – but at least they can thank the community for showing a path forward on what could work for cloud based gaming that won’t take another five years to achieve.

  • Mateusz Pawluczuk

    First Meta decided to shutter down Oculus Rift and Oculus Go quoting too many headsets dillute the market, now they’re saying 1 headset is not enough, got to have four.. go figure

  • Cless

    Hey man, you forgot to upvote yourself. Please do so in order for me to downvote you. I THOUGHT WE HAD A DEAL.