Every year I like to play the guessing game for the Oculus/Facebook/Meta Connect making my list of predictions… which are not always correct, but they are good because they entice all the community people to play this game with me and to tell how they would love to see XR evolving. So let’s see together what are my predictions for tomorrow’s 2024 edition!
AI, AI, AI
Last year we learned the hard way that the Meta Connect is not the Oculus Connect: it is not an event only focused on XR, but it’s an event about the whole technology landscape Meta is investing in. And at this moment, the technology that has the most hype and that investors want to hear about is Artificial Intelligence and not XR. For this reason, I expect many pieces of news about AI, especially about some evolutions of LLAMA and some AI agents that Meta AI is able to autonomously generate. I expect also more integrations between AI and social media.
Of course, artificial intelligence and XR are an amazing match, so we could also see some of the following things:
- More integration of AI with Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses
- More integration of AI with Quest headsets (remember that Quest 3 just got support for Meta AI)
- R&D algorithms that use AI for environment understanding, which could be used on all headsets and glasses
My guess is that a good chunk of the event will be dedicated to artificial intelligence.
Quest 3S
More than a guess, this is a certainty: Meta will announce at Connect the Quest 3S, a device meant to lower the entry price of VR and MR after the discontinuation of Quest 2. Quest 3S will be a mix of Oculus Go, Meta Quest 2, and Meta Quest 3: it will have the lenses and the display of Quest 2, the processor and the mixed reality (almost) like the Quest 3, and a shape that a bit reminds the Oculus Go. The launch price should be $299 for the 128GB edition, the preorders should open the day of the event, and the shipping could come around October, 16th.
We almost know everything about this headset, so theoretically Zuck could just go on stage and say “Oh, we also launch the Quest 3S, but you know everything about it, so let’s get back to speaking about AI”, but I think he will pretend we know nothing, so will do a regular launch. Last year the Quest 3 got very little attention during the event, but considering that the Quest 3S is meant for a more widespread consumer appeal because of its low price, I bet it will get more glory on the stage.
Quest games
This year Meta had no gaming showcase, so I think it may have a few gaming news to share during the event. I don’t expect many announced titles because this is not the purpose of the Connect, but considering that Quest 3S is expected to make great sales in the next Holiday season, they need to speak a bit about its upcoming content, to entice even more people to buy this device. The launch of upcoming games about Alien and Batman will already help a lot, but if Meta announced another big game we should expect for 2025 (Maybe another GTA? Lol), it could help adoption even more.
It wouldn’t be bad also if Meta announced that whoever preorders the Quest gets a cool game from one of its partner studios for free.
Mixed Reality content
Mixed Reality is the word of the moment and Meta wants to show that it is strong at it. The Quest 3S will be probably marketed as the most affordable mixed reality headset on the market, so Meta may want to show that it can do Spatial Computing like the Apple Vision Pro but at less than one-tenth of the price. So I expect Meta to show more “spatial computing” content available for the Vision Pro like the possibility to watch sports or movies on the device or to use it for productivity. The recent launch of Godot for Quest is also a great example of this.
Among the announced games, I expect there will be some in mixed reality to double down on this theme. Games are a type of content where Meta is very strong while Apple has a lacking ecosystem.
To be honest, I expect more focus on MR than on VR for this event.
There has been a recent leak about an upcoming graphical overhaul for Meta Avatars, so I guess this will be announced at Connect. I’m honestly not a big fan of the new design shown in the pictures, but it’s good to see that Meta is evolving its avateering system to make it always more realistic.
Last year’s interview that Zuck did using realistic Codec Avatars got a huge amount of buzz, so I also expect that Meta may show some examples of hyperrealistic avatars used in the labs inside a modified Quest. This would be great to show the vision that Meta has about avateering.
If the statistics of Horizon Worlds have improved with respect to a few years ago, probably Meta will show some numbers about it (e.g. “The Quest users spent in total 3 million hours in 2024 in Horizon Worlds”). I also expect an official launch of the new tools that creators can use to make better worlds in Horizon Worlds.
New Augments Creation framework
At Meta Connect last year, Meta teased Augments, some AR widgets that you can put in your home and that can enrich your physical environment. The original plan was to make creators use Spark AR to develop them, but then Meta realized that it was not feasible and it even shut down the whole Spark AR program.
What we expect is that Meta will launch a new framework to create augmented reality content, probably something that unifies the creation of AR content for mobile, MR headsets, and AR glasses. Ideally, it would be usable by creative people without knowing how to code, but should also allow them to write scripts to make something more complex. It could be a bit similar to what Snap announced a few days ago for Spectacles.
I think Augments have a lot of potential both on the creative and the business side: in the future, all of us will have AR widgets in our house (e.g. for the time, the weather, etc…), so there are all the premises to create a lucrative store for them. That’s why I think that Meta may talk about them at Connect.
Orion AR glasses prototype
Meta has clearly stated that it is going to show a prototype of AR glasses at Connect. Meta’s executives have hyped them with bold statements like “In the domain of consumer electronics, it might be the most advanced thing that we’ve ever produced as a species”, so they should be very good. These glasses will be very expensive, so won’t be put on sale, but will only be given to selected partner companies and to some Meta employees.
They will serve to sell Meta’s vision about augmented reality, so I also imagine some R&D demos that show cool things that these AR glasses can do and that could be reshared by the press or by the community in some viral video snippets. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these demos would also work with the support of a bracelet that can read the impulses the brain sends to muscles (the technology that Meta acquired thanks to CTRL+Labs). Meta learned from Apple that it has to sell a vision (pun intended) more than some scrappy XR devkits. See the difference that Zuck had in reaction to its ridiculous selfie in Horizon Worlds (criticism about a present-time product) and to its interview made with the Codec Avatars (hype for a future tech).
I honestly don’t think that any of us in the XR community may be overly surprised by this device: we all already know what AR glasses are, and something that has a larger field of view and a higher resolution than Magic Leap 2 is not enough to make us go WOW. But I think we will all still be intrigued by them because they will have specifications no other AR glasses have.
Honestly, these AR glasses are the only reason why I truly regret not being at Connect. After so much teasing, I would have wanted to try them. And since they won’t be sold on the market, there will be few public occasions when it will be possible to have a hands-on with “the most advanced thing that we’ve ever produced as a species”…
Ray-Ban Meta has been a very successful product, and some little bird told me they could have sold millions of units. For this reason, Meta and EssilorLuxottica have just struck a partnership to continue their collaboration until 2030. I can imagine that at Connect there could be a tease of what could be the evolution of the smart glasses the two companies are working on together.
There is a rumor about Meta launching at Connect a pair of smart glasses with a display that can show simple notifications. According to this rumor, Meta did them without Luxottica and I don’t know what to think about it. On one side, I agree that Meta may showcase a prototype of smartglasses with a display, while on the other side, I don’t think that launching a pair of smartglasses without the distribution power and the cool design of Luxottica may lead to the same success of Ray-Ban Meta. Probably if this launch happens, it could be more of a devkit dedicated to XR people than a new commercial product.
One thing that I would love to see is Meta opening up an app store dedicated to smart glasses. Given the huge success they are having, it would be nice to open them up to developers who could expand their functionalities. But probably is a bit too early for that.
Some surprises
I love surprises, so I would be very happy if Meta would announce something I’m absolutely not thinking about. I don’t know, a little AI-driven robot with the face of Zuck that I could keep as a companion here in my house that drinks BBQ sauce and provides me targeted advertisements all the time. Or Boz that goes on stage and says that his favorite game on the Meta Store is The Unity Cube. Whatever it will be, I hope that tomorrow I will tell you that something unexpected happened. Fingers crossed for this.
These are my speculations for tomorrow’s Meta Connect 2024. As I’ve said, the purpose of this post is to start this speculation game with you, so let me know what are your predictions, either here below this article or by answering me on the social media channels! Who of you will make the best predictions?
(Header image by Meta)
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