The Meta Quest Pro didn’t quite hit the mark in the prosumer market as initially anticipated. This has led Meta to phase out its first mixed reality headset just over two years since its launch. Now, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman shares insights that Meta is not only developing the Quest 3 as a consumer-targeted sequel but is also exploring a “high-end” variant that might step in as the next Quest Pro.
In his newsletter, Gurman delves into a broad spectrum of recent XR developments. Highlights include Meta’s potential plans to integrate displays into the future Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses and reports suggesting Apple is scaling back production of its Vision Pro due to a drop in demand for the costly $3,500 device.
Gurman, referencing sources within the company, mentioned that Meta is “investigating the Quest 4 VR goggles alongside a new premium model that could provide a successor to the Quest Pro mixed-reality headset.”
Debuting in late 2022, the Quest Pro marked a pivot away from Meta’s more budget-conscious line of standalone headsets, which at that time were priced around $300.
Originally priced at $1,500, the Quest Pro brought several advanced features to the table, including color-passthrough, pancake lenses, and eye and facial tracking, well above the offerings of the contemporaneous Quest 2. Yet, a mere five months after its release, Meta slashed the Quest Pro’s price to $1,000, a move aimed at captivating more prosumers.
In July 2023, The Information reported that Meta was phasing out the Quest Pro line, a claim Meta’s CTO and Reality Labs head Andrew Bosworth challenged, urging skepticism with his remark, “don’t believe everything you read.”
Further developments in a July 2024 report from The Information suggested Meta was redirecting its efforts towards creating a lighter mixed reality device, likened to “a bulky pair of glasses,” under the codename ‘Puffin’, which is reportedly on track for a 2027 release. This is on top of Meta’s stated ambition to release AR glasses by 2030, in functionality akin to its Orion AR glasses prototype.
Subsequent information from The Information also alleged that a prototype for Quest Pro 2, codenamed ‘La Jolla’, had been shelved. Bosworth later confirmed La Jolla’s cancellation and the ongoing development of Puffin, yet he didn’t clarify whether the Quest Pro series was being completely abandoned.
Meta’s strategy of progress through experimentation involves launching and halting various prototypes as outlined by Bosworth. This approach emphasizes exploration instead of immediate commercial success. Where projects such as the Quest Pro 2 currently stand is ambiguous, leaving it unclear whether these stops and starts are merely part of the journey or indicative of project terminations.
While addressing earlier speculation that the Quest Pro line was axed, Bosworth remarked, “there might be a Quest Pro 2, there might not be. I’m not really telling you, but I will say don’t believe everything you read about what’s been stopped or started.”
