With Meta Connect 2024 just around the corner – September 25-26 – I’m sharing the five announcements I most want to see at the event, as well as explaining why I think they are (or aren’t in one entry’s case) likely to happen.
Meta Connect is an annual Meta event focused on its Reality Labs division, where it reveals exciting new hardware coming our way soon and teases future hardware and software we’ll see in the coming years.
This year’s event will likely continue the trend of focusing on XR tech – a catchall for virtual, mixed, and augmented reality technologies – as well as the omnipresent AI, which in Meta’s case is inventively called Meta AI. So this list reflects those expectations, starting with an announcement that has practically already been made.
Meta Reality Labs – Project Ventura/PantherMeta Quest 3S – Final Design pic.twitter.com/6Tc9ig2hJoAugust 11, 2024
This is less of a ‘what I want to see’ and more of a ‘what we definitely will see unless Meta is playing a big joke on us.’ That’s because the Meta Quest 3S has not only been teased by external leakers sharing details about the project, but Meta itself has leaked its existence through apps and accidentally shown it off in unrelated Threads videos from its CTO.
Based on everything we know, the Quest 3S will boast the Quest 3’s Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset, but a bulkier body and lower-spec displays so it can target a lower price tag – hopefully, somewhere around the Meta Quest 2’s $299 / £299 / AU$479.
This would be an ideal headset for anyone who doesn’t want to be left behind by VR software now that Meta Quest 3 exclusives like Batman: Arkham Shadow are on the way, but isn’t ready to spend ($499.99 / £479.99 / AU$799.99) on a VR headset.
Obviously, we’ll have to wait and see exactly what Meta announces during Connect, but I expect the Quest 3S could be the best and biggest reveal we get in terms of making current-gen VR accessible again.
The Quest 3S might not be the only Horizon OS VR headset we see this September. Back in April, Meta announced that its operating system – Horizon OS – will be coming to other headsets from Asus, Lenovo and Xbox, and I think it’s time we finally see one of those headsets in action.
Horizon OS is the best standalone VR operating system I’ve tried. It’s clean, intuitive, feature-rich, and home to the best standalone VR and MR software catalog, thanks, in part, to some great exclusives. I was excited to see that other headset manufacturers would be able to access this OS and all its benefits, as it would allow their hardware to shine without being let down by comparatively lackluster software.
Since the announcement, however, we’ve not heard a thing. Now, hardware does take time to develop, but at Meta Connect 2024, I’d love to see a sizzle reel showcasing these third-party headsets – or even just one of them.
One factor helping my prediction is Google’s XR platform. With Google’s XR efforts – which it developed alongside Samsung – set to be announced sometime this year a reminder from Meta that Horizon OS is open to third parties makes sense so Horizon OS doesn’t get forgotten in the noise.
Meta, and the industry at large, has steadily shifted focus from VR headsets to MR headsets to AR glasses. The products being teased for the coming decade are a new breed of sleek XR wearable focused on augmented reality.
We know Meta is working on something blending AR and AI, Mark Zuckerberg has suggested as much, but we’ve yet to get a proper look at what these glasses might look like – ignoring the stylish non-AR smart glasses Meta has developed in partnership with Ray-Ban.
A launch this year or even next year seems unlikely. I expect we’d get a sneak peek at a prototype AR glasses model at most. Nevertheless, I’d love to finally get a good look at what Meta has been working on in AR, even at this in-development stage.
Given that Meta does like to use Connect to showcase exciting projects that are still several years (or longer) from launch, I think an AR glasses segment is more than possible for Meta Connect 2024.
Enough about hardware, let’s talk software.
It’s been the buzzword of 2024 and I’m certain that Meta AI will have plenty of time devoted to it, however, I particularly want to see two announcements.
The first is a wider rollout. Officially, Meta AI on the Ray-Ban smart glasses and the Meta Quest 3 is only available in the US and Canada. Some users (including me) have been able to access it regardless – in my case, I have Meta AI on my smart glasses – but I want to see people outside of North America able to reliably use Meta AI. It’s a really neat assistant, especially on the Ray-Bans, and it’s a shame this major feature is region-locked right now – even if it’s not yet perfect.
The second would be to see Meta AI achieve better parity with the Apple Intelligence and Google Gemini upgrades we’ve seen at recent events, and perhaps some unique features. This could include integration with a wider selection of apps so it can pull context from more places, better speech recognition so you can talk to Meta AI more naturally, AI image editing and generation tools so you can edit snaps taken on your Ray-Ban smart glasses on the fly, or a service that lets you conjure up virtual objects you describe while using your Quest headset in a mixed reality sandbox.
A mini Quest Gaming Showcase
For my fifth and final entry, I’m picking something that seems the most unlikely because Meta Connect usually doesn’t dive too deeply into gaming: a mini Quest Gaming Showcase highlighting some new and exciting VR titles.
This year we didn’t get a proper Quest Gaming Showcase, so I’d love to see some Quest titles get a chance to shine on a big Meta stage at Connect 2024 – especially mixed reality experiences and software that doesn’t have the recognisability of major gaming franchises (like Batman: Arkham Shadow) to help draw in crowds.
Saying that, one particularly exciting announcement would be the revival of GTA: San Andreas VR following it being labeled as “on hold indefinitely” by a Meta spokesperson back in August. That announcement’s about as likely as hearing about Silksong during a Meta presentation (or any 2024 presentation for that matter, it seems) so I certainly won’t be holding my breath.
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hamish.hector@futurenet.com (Hamish Hector)
