ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Meta’s $1,299 VR Glasses launch next year.
- They offer a surprisingly premium entertainment and work experience.
- Meta’s push to make VR glasses mainstream looks like 3D TV in the early 2000s (and we know how that went).
Would you rather sit alone court-side at an NBA Finals game, or in the back of the stadium surrounded by your best friends? That’s the question I’ve been weighing after testing Meta’s VR Glasses. The virtual reality device offers an all-encompassing entertainment suite, with courtside views, front-row concerts, and immersive movie watching. It’s an advanced product, but one that’s designed to be solo.
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After trying Meta’s $1,299 VR Glasses, I came away impressed by their immersive entertainment and virtual workspace, although I’m less convinced they’ll replace the experience of watching something together. The Meta VR Glasses are slated for a spring 2027 launch, but their biggest hurdle is reminiscent of that of 3D TVs: giving people a reason to keep wearing them.
Solo immersion
Remember 3D movies? The 3D glasses lacked vividness, but you could still experience the effect with your friends. The Meta VR Glasses, on the other hand, are way more immersive, but to the point that they remove you from your environment. During my demo, when I entered cinema mode to watch James Cameron’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)”, it was as if Billie Eilish was performing live, only a few feet away from me. The sound, equally immersive and crisp, met my standards, too. It was dynamic and clear.
ESPN has partnered with Meta to bring its games to the glasses, offering users a front-row seat to high-priced sporting events, like the Knicks’ NBA Finals, where court-side tickets sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. ESPN is building for the device by capturing 8K sports footage that can then be rendered as crisp, fluid content for Meta’s 5K infinite display. By October 2027, people will also be able to watch live college football games on the VR glasses.
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Movies are coming, too. Meta is partnering with Lionsgate to bring the new Hunger Games movie, “Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping,” to the glasses for yet another immersive movie. Could this new movie be its “Avatar” moment? The company’s partnerships are promising, and they prove that Meta is intent on building out these glasses as a premium entertainment hub.
Whether this entertainment medium will stick is up to consumers, who will weigh buying a $1,300 pair of VR glasses against buying a $1,000 concert or sporting ticket. But if someone has enough money to drop on $1,300 smart glasses, why wouldn’t they just buy the concert or game tickets? Maybe as VR headsets and glasses democratize front-row experiences, being physically present at such events will become a hotter commodity.
As advanced as the technology is on these glasses, however, the experience they deliver is highly individualized. Yes, the technology is impressive, but I’d be just as happy watching “The Odyssey” on my laptop screen as I chat about the movie with my friend next to me.
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There’s something communal about seeking out your friend’s reactions to a crazy scene and enjoying a laugh or cry together, whereas the technology in the Meta VR Glasses can feel isolating. I can’t help but feel that we lose that feeling of communal happiness, grief, or terror that’s part of watching a movie together when we’re fully immersed in it.
Meta does the small (and creepy) things well
Unlike a Quest headset, the VR Glasses are lighter and have a wired puck attached to one of the temple tips. This is where the compute, battery, and memory live. They look like sunglasses with peep holes, and weigh around 100 grams.
The glasses are pleasant to wear, and I quickly got accustomed to the interface, which users navigate using eye tracking and a few hand gestures. This was the first display I’ve ever controlled with my eyes, and it was just as creepy as it was useful.
I had a difficult time balancing my surprise at Meta’s development of functional eye-tracking technology with my discomfort that Meta, a company with middling user privacy policies and a deep thirst for users’ attention regardless of the repercussions, is now tracking myeyes.
Meta makes the case that these glasses are built for work — and all it took was a few small, useful touches. My favorite of these is the Surface Keyboard, which projects a virtual keyboard on any flat surface and works in tandem with the glasses’ three-monitor display. This could be an airplane seat tray or an empty, monitor-less desk.
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The alternative to the Surface Keyboard is a precarious floating keyboard that forces the glasses wearer to lift their hands and type in the air, which is not nearly as intuitive as the keyboard on a flat surface. Users can also connect their laptop’s keyboard or trackpad to the device, if they prefer.
What 3D TV’s failure could teach Meta about VR glasses
Not long ago, 3D movies, games, and TV were seen as the future of television. After James Cameron’s “Avatar” hit 3D screens in 2009, production companies were eager to go all in on this three-dimensional viewing experience. Other partners flocked to the technology. Even ESPN got on board, launching ESPN 3D in 2010 with an inaugural 3D game of the FIFA World Cup’s opening match. This all sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Three years later, over 41 million 3D TVs had been sold worldwide. My family bought one of those TVs — and four 3D glasses to boot — so we could watch the film in 3D from the comfort of our living room.
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I don’t remember much about “Avatar” in 3D, though I do remember falling asleep before the movie ended, so the 3D experience clearly wasn’t memorable or compelling. According to my mom, that was the first and last 3D movie we ever watched on it. “The TV holds no special moments for me,” she said over text.
So, what happened to the promise of 3D TV? 4K TVs and the rise of streaming services burst its bubble, and customers tired of wearing uncomfortable, pricey 3D glasses. The more advanced, useful 3D glasses were battery-powered and expensive, while the lighter, cheaper 3D glasses rendered dull images.
A few years later, 3D TVs had been put to rest. Most TV manufacturers cut production of the technology by 2016, and one year later, you couldn’t find a single TV brand with 3D viewing offerings. Three years after its launch, ESPN 3D folded, due to “limited viewer adoption of 3D services,”
Who should consider Meta’s $1,299 VR Glasses
Despite using some of the same old tricks from 3D TV’s playbook, the Meta VR Glasses feel new and further developed with deliberate partnerships and practical touches. Every feature is thoughtful, useful, and futuristic — there aren’t any cheap gimmicks.
If it were only a good home entertainment device, or only a good hybrid work device, maybe I’d raise an eyebrow at the price. But the Meta VR Glasses are both — pulling double duty as an impressive entertainment device and a functional tool for work. Would you pay for a TV that also doubled as your laptop? If so, you’d probably get a lot out of the Meta VR Glasses.
However, if movies, sports, and concerts connect us with one another, the Meta VR Glasses effectively stand in the way of such connections, both literally and physically. The 3D experience for “Avatar” wasn’t nearly as advanced as Meta’s VR Glasses, but at least I still felt like I was watching something with my family.
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If my parents had fallen for the flashy 3D TV, would they buy these Meta VR Glasses today? I think they learned their lesson about jumping on a hot new piece of tech too soon, so I’m going to say no. Plus, it turns out they’ve still been watching movies from that same TV, my dad tells me, some 15 years later.
And as for the TV’s accompanying 3D glasses? We trashed those years ago.
