Meta is holding its annual Connect developer conference next week, and will be showing off a bunch of new, long-awaited, and perhaps somewhat surprising VR and AR hardware, along with what could be a big Meta ai showcase that will include the company's new Llama large language model and the image generator in apps like WhatsApp.
And as Meta moves away from custom tools for AR filters, we could end up seeing a whole new set of developer tools designed to take advantage of generative ai experiences. Perhaps it’ll all come together in Meta’s next big push into its alternate reality ideas (and namesake) in the metaverse, including major updates to Horizon Worlds.
However, the most anticipated products expected to appear during the conference are the successor to Meta Quest 3 and perhaps updates to Meta and Raybans, which are some pretty cool smart glasses. Hopefully, we'll see the rumored “Orion” AR glasses, but we'll have to attend the Connect conference to find out.
When is Meta Connect 2024?
Meta's Connect developer conference kicks off this year Wednesday, September 25, 2024and ends the following day, Thursday, September 26. The conference will begin with the Connect keynote, headlined by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in 1:00 PM Eastern Time / 10:00 AM Pacific Timefollowed immediately by a developer conference at 2:00 pm US Eastern Time/11:00 am Pacific Time. Meta has A complete program on the Connect site.
How to watch Meta Connect 2024
The Meta Connect keynote will be streamed live on Meta Connect official websiteIf you're a Quest headset user, you can also Watch it in Horizon WorldsFollowing the presentations, you can join live developer sessions to dive deeper into ai and mixed reality. facebook.com/MetaforDevelopers/”>On facebook.
What to expect at Meta Connect 2024
What's most interesting about Meta is that it holds the keys to the closest thing to conventional VR headsets, with the Quest 2 and Quest 3. The latter, however, started at too high a price ($500 compared to the Quest 2, which now costs $200) and didn't have very sharp augmented reality video streaming. We're now expecting a cheaper version, the Quest “3S,” which could sell for as little as $299.99, according to leaks.
Meta also has other new VR headsets in the works, including a new Quest 4 for 2026 and something pro-level designed for spatial computing internally dubbed “La Jolla” for 2027. Recent reports suggest plans for the latter might now be on ice, especially since Apple’s $3,500 Vision Pro struggle to gain tractionWe may not see these models specifically at Connect, but other models may be in the works.
An update to the futuristic Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses is also expected at Connect. The current glasses look clean and aren’t too chunky, but they’re ripe for an iterative update, even if augmented reality capabilities aren’t planned. The glasses respond to your commands with Meta ai, so expect new chatbot assistant experiences on the way.
Meta is also working on a new mixed reality headset called “Orion” internally, which we can expect at least a sneak peek of. Snap recently let us use its new AR Spectacles, but they’re exclusive to developers, and one former Snap engineer who was involved in the project called them “obviously bad.” Hopefully what we see of Orion will be much more interesting.
Along with Meta's VR strategy comes expectations for new software and experiences, including the future of gaming on Quest. Right now, there are questions about what Meta is doing for gaming: it's closing the Ready at Dawn game studio that created immersive 3D games like Echo VRwhile casual games like Wordle are coming in. Meanwhile, Meta recently released an app that allows you to play console games on headphones via HDMI.
