Meta introduces cheaper Quest 3S VR headset for $299

Meta announced the Quest 3S, the latest virtual reality headset from the company's Reality Labs division and a more affordable offering than its predecessor.

The device will go on sale Oct. 15 and will start at $299, compared to the $499 starting price of 2023's Quest 3. The device can be used to watch movies and run VR fitness apps and games, Meta said Wednesday at its Connect event at its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. The company positioned the headset as a multitasking computer, putting it in competition with Apple's $3,499 Vision Pro headset, which launched in February.

Meta's Quest devices to date are the best-selling VR headsets, and millions have been shipped thanks to intensive marketing efforts and a lower price than many competitors. But those efforts have not yet sparked a cultural phenomenon or a mainstream software ecosystem around VR. Including the acquisition of Oculus in 2014, Meta has poured more than $65 billion into its hardware efforts.

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Zuckerberg said.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the company’s spending as a strategic initiative to prevent Apple from controlling future hardware platforms.

Although there was hope among VR developers that Apple's entry into the market would unleash a wave of new apps and users, Apple has not disclosed sales figures for its headset. Reports suggest that only small quantities (under a million units) have been sold, in part due to the high price.

A Meta representative said the “S” stands for “Start” – that is, “First Steps with VR.”

Many of the new meta features the company unveiled Tuesday for its $299 Quest 3S have counterparts in Apple's Vision Pro, including a mode that lets the device be used on an airplane and another that simulates a large movie theater inside the headset.

Meta highlighted improved “passthrough,” the term used when a VR headset uses cameras and sensors on the outside of the device to display live, real-time video inside the headset. This feature is designed to give users the feeling of looking through a display and allow them to interact with the real world while keeping the headset on. For the Quest 3S, Meta added a dedicated button to turn on passthrough.

The company highlighted the Quest 3S's multitasking and app capabilities, positioning it as a computing device rather than a gaming console.

“Quest offers everything you can do with a general-purpose computer, the complete package,” Zuckerberg said.

In demos Tuesday, Meta showed how the device could run up to four apps simultaneously on floating screens inside the headset, including a YouTube video, a browser, Amazon Music and Meta's app store. Meta says the headset can handle six windows. The demo didn't go smoothly, though. The Amazon Music app crashed, window controls disappeared and Meta's controllers went to sleep after a few minutes if the user didn't press any buttons.

In addition to the Quest 3S, Meta also announced a price cut for last year's Quest 3, bringing the price of the 512GB version down from $650 to $500. The Quest 3 has more advanced lenses and a better screen with a higher resolution than the Quest 3S.

In addition, Meta announced that it will stop production of the Quest Pro, its $999 headset that launched in 2022 and never really took off.

Zuckerberg said Meta has added voices to its AI assistant, along with other capabilities such as recognizing objects in photos.

The chatbot, which can be accessed through Meta's apps, can conduct a conversation similar to OpenAI's recently released voice mode.

Meta also revealed some chatbots that use the voices of celebrities such as John Cena, Judy Dench and Keegan-Michael Key. Zuckerberg joked about the risks of demonstrating software in front of a live audience with a bot that used the voice of comedian Awkwafina.

The company said the new chatbot features are based on Meta's Llama AI model.

REGARD: Meta chatbot uses celebrity voices