With the holidays fast approaching, ‘tis the season for companies to reveal all the shiny new gadgets they want showing up on wish lists. Today is Meta’s turn, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg expected to reveal all the details on Project Cambria (rumoured to be called the Meta Quest Pro) — its next generation virtual reality headset — at its Meta Connect conference. Anyone can tune in to watch the event when it streams starting at 1 PM ET today.
A year ago, Facebook revealed a major rebranding, with the company changing its name to Meta and making a major push towards realising the metaverse: a somewhat vague and buzzwordy term for a virtual reality platform where people can play games, shop, work, and interact with each other, all while wearing a VR headset, like the Meta Quest 2.
Despite a significant $US100 ($139) price bump announced for the Meta Quest 2 back in July, the headset remains one of the most popular virtual reality solutions available to consumers, selling almost 15 million units since its debut in 2020. But two years is an eternity for VR hardware to go unchanged, as the definition of virtual reality endlessly morphs and evolves. That’s why Meta has been teasing its Quest 2 follow-up over the past year. Codenamed Project Cambria, but rumoured to officially be called the Meta Quest Pro, it could significantly exceed $US800 ($1,111).
We’ll know for certain how Meta plans to further shape the metaverse starting at 1pm EST today as CEO Mark Zuckerberg takes the stage for an opening Meta Connect keynote speech that will include the big Cambria reveal. You can tune into the event’s livestream through the Reality Lab’s Facebook page, or, if you have access to a Meta Quest 2 headset, you can also register and experience the event in the metaverse itself inside Horizon Worlds. If you go that route, you’ll probably want to keep a backup battery on hand for your headset, as today’s presentation is expected to run for five hours, including an address by John Carmack starting at 5:30pm EST.