If you’re in the enterprise of promoting VR or combined actuality headsets, the time to announce your new product is … now. Especially in the event you’re Meta.

This morning the corporate confirmed off the Meta Quest 3, which is 40 % thinner than the earlier headset and incorporates twice the processing energy, due to a brand new Snapdragon chipset from Qualcomm. Also, the hand controllers have been redesigned to enhance their ergonomics. The new headset will go on sale “this fall” beginning at $500. In a blog post, the corporate teased that extra particulars in regards to the Quest 3 could be revealed at Meta Connect on September 27. 

The Meta Quest 3 follows—and successfully replaces—the Meta Quest 2, which grew to become out there within the fall of 2020. It’s been acquired effectively within the VR headset market as a comparatively cheap ($400) stand-alone VR headset with a high-resolution show and what’s referred to as “inside-out” monitoring. The Quest 2’s value will go all the way down to $300 on June 4, and the older headset will get a small efficiency bump together with the worth drop.

Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman scooped Meta’s news earlier this week, after he was capable of get his arms on a prototype of the brand new Meta Quest 3. The Bloomberg report highlighted the headset’s improved video pass-through capabilities, which makes use of exterior cameras on the headset to indicate wearers what’s happening in the actual world (versus utilizing clear lenses with some digital imagery overlaid, which is extra usually described as augmented actuality). Gurman additionally famous that the system, which had been codenamed Eureka, is “far thinner and lighter than the existing Quest 2 from 2020.” 

Meta’s headset information comes forward of Apple’s WWDC software program occasion subsequent week, the place the corporate will reportedly reveal a years-in-the-making face pc of its personal. Apple has been assembly with app builders in latest months to entice them to construct experiences for what the corporate considers a brand new platform. This could be the primary main launch of a brand new {hardware} product line for Apple because it launched the Apple Watch in 2015. (Apple additionally launched the HomePod speaker in 2017, however that wasn’t a completely new platform for apps.) 

Anticipation for Apple’s new product is so heightened that different corporations are scrambling to place their wares forward of subsequent week. Earlier this week, PC maker Lenovo mentioned its enterprise-focused ThinkReality VRX headset is now delivery, at $1,299. Magic Leap, which has been engaged on augmented actuality expertise since 2010 and holds hundreds of patents round optical expertise and AR/VR manufacturing processes, has been assembly with press to reveal its Magic Leap 2 headset. The headset is thinner and lighter, with improved optics, than its predecessor, the Magic Leap One; just like the Lenovo headset, it’s aimed squarely at enterprise clients. 

The Meta Quest 3, then again, is extra of a consumer-friendly system. The headset was introduced simply hours earlier than the corporate’s Meta Quest Gaming Showcase, a web-based occasion which exhibits off the library of video games and experiences out there for Meta’s platform.