The Meta Quest Pro, which debuted as a promising prosumer mixed reality headset, ultimately didn’t capture the market as expected. Consequently, Meta decided to halt its production a little over two years after its release. Now, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, it seems Meta is gearing up to launch a Quest 3 geared towards consumers, and intriguingly, a “high-end” model that might just take the place of the Quest Pro.
In his weekly newsletter, Gurman discusses a slew of developments in the XR space. He touches upon Meta’s potential inclusion of a display in the next edition of Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses and mentions the buzz about Apple reportedly scaling back production of its $3,500 Vision Pro due to waning interest.
Gurman, quoting sources with insider information, reveals that Meta is actively developing the Quest 4 VR goggles along with a sophisticated high-end model, hinting that it could potentially be the next step for the Quest Pro’s mixed reality legacy.
Upon its release in late 2022, the Quest Pro represented a major shift from Meta’s usual standalone consumer devices, which typically hovered around the $300 price range.
Initially launched at a steep $1,500, the Quest Pro boasted an array of advanced features over its predecessor, the Quest 2. These included color-passthrough, pancake lenses, and capabilities for face and eye-tracking. However, less than five months into its market presence, Meta slashed its price to $1,000, aiming to reel in more prosumers.
By July 2023, The Information released a report suggesting Meta might be shelving the Quest Pro series entirely. Responding promptly, Meta’s CTO and chief of Reality Labs, Andrew Bosworth, cautioned against taking every report at face value, asserting, “don’t believe everything you read.”
An additional scoop from The Information in July 2024 claimed Meta was redirecting its ‘Pro’ focus towards developing a lightweight mixed reality gadget that resembles “a bulky pair of glasses,” with the codename ‘Puffin’ and a tentative release target of 2027. This aligns with Meta’s expressed desire to bring AR glasses to market before 2030, similar in function to their Orion AR glasses prototype.
A subsequent piece from The Information further suggested that a Quest Pro 2 prototype, named ‘La Jolla’, had been put on hold. Bosworth later confirmed that La Jolla was indeed shelved and that Puffin is currently in the works, but he stopped short of confirming whether the Quest Pro line is definitively a thing of the past.
Meta’s cycle of development reflects a strategy of experimenting with and abandoning prototypes, a practice Bosworth has previously described as favoring exploration over immediate market viability. Whether ventures like Quest Pro 2 and others are progressing or have hit dead ends remains unclear, creating speculation about the company’s internal decision-making process.
While dismissing prior claims about the discontinuation of the Quest Pro line, 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.”
