Affordable Meta Quest 3S headset and Orion AR prototype unveiled
Today, Meta unveiled the result of years of research and development – its very first AR glasses called Orion. In addition, the company is launching the cheaper Meta Quest 3S. The Orion is just a prototype so far, though, and is not sold to end customers.
Meta Quest 3S
The Meta Quest 3S is a cheaper version of the Quest 3. It’s actually more of a mix of the Quest 2 and 3 to keep the price down. If you prefer the older, more powerful model, you’ll be happy to see prices are coming down. The 3S starts at $300, but uses the same Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset as the regular Quest 3, with the same 8GB of RAM. And it has the same color passthrough that was a big upgrade over the Quest 2. A 4MP camera captures the real world for AR experiences.
Instead of two LCD displays, the Meta Quest 3S uses a single LCD with slightly lower resolution per eye (1,832 x 1,920 pixels versus 2,064 x 2,208 pixels). The new display still offers fast 90Hz and 120Hz refresh rates, but lacks the 72Hz and 80Hz options. These are handy if you’re using PCVR, for example, as reducing the refresh rate helps increase rendering resolution.
Perhaps more importantly, the Quest 3’s slim pancake lens has been replaced with the Quest 2’s old Fresnel lens. This reduces the field of view to 96° horizontally and 90° vertically, compared to 110° and 96°. The Meta Quest 3S weighs essentially the same, though – 514g versus 515g. It does have a slightly longer battery life, however, at 2 hours and 30 minutes (compared to 2 hours and 12 minutes). This is despite a smaller battery, at 4324mAh versus 5060mAh.
Meta Quest 3S pricing
The Meta Quest 3S has two storage capacities, 128GB and 256GB. You can find the prices below. The 512GB Quest 3 has since been reduced in price, so this remains an option.
| Meta Quest 3S | 128GB | 256GB |
|---|---|---|
| US | $300 | $400 |
| Canada | C$400 | C$550 |
| UK | £290 | £380 |
| EU | €330 | €440 |
| Australia | A$500 | A$670 |
| Meta Quest 3 | 128GB | 512GB |
| US | $430 | $500 |
| Canada | C$580 | C$680 |
| UK | £410 | £470 |
| EU | €480 | €550 |
| Australia | A$800 | A$1,050 |
Meta Orion
“Orion has the largest field of view in the smallest AR glasses form to date” is the elevator pitch for these glasses. Note that while they look a bit like the Ray-Ban Stories, they are proper AR glasses with a pair of holographic displays and 3D mapping. The Meta Orion glasses are suitable for indoor and outdoor use. The company says they are lightweight and have “large” holographic displays, but doesn’t go into detail.
The holographic displays are transparent. You can see through them and people around you can see your eyes, unlike the opaque Apple Vision Pro headset.
But these displays are also capable of displaying color graphics. And that’s both simple, floating virtual displays or complex, contextual Meta AI objects with additional information. In one demo, Meta showed food items on a counter. The Orion recognized them, marked them, and offered a possible recipe you could make with them.
Meta says the Orion’s components had to be packed as tightly as possible, to fractions of a millimeter, to achieve the compact and sleek build. And while this is the most advanced AR glasses yet, they still need polishing.
“Rather than rushing to put it on shelves, we decided to focus on internal development first, which means we can keep building quickly and continue to push the boundaries of the technology, helping us arrive at an even better consumer product faster“.
Starting today, Meta employees and select external audiences have access to the Orion prototype. The market launch is planned for the “near future.” Before that happens, Meta wants to improve the display quality and shrink the hardware even further. In addition, optimizing mass production is a big issue in order to bring the price down for end customers.
