What you need to know
- According to the Korean Economic Newspaper, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will meet with LG CEO Cho Joo Wan on Wednesday to plan an “AI-XR partnership.”
- LG will reportedly develop the hardware and bring its webOS TV interface to the Meta Quest Pro 2, scheduled for release in Q1 2025.
- Meta may bring its AI services to LG’s home appliances and IT services.
- Previous rumors suggested that the Quest Pro 2 would cost $2,000.
According to industry sources, Meta and LG’s CEO are scheduled to meet in South Korea on Wednesday to discuss the “AI-XR partnership.” Among the things on the agenda, Meta plans to partner with LG in the development of his Meta Quest Pro 2, his second foray into a premium productivity XR headset.
According to Google Translate, the Korean Economic Newspaper (via UploadVR) says, “The two companies plan to release the highest-performance XR headset, which surpasses Apple’s Vision Pro, in the first quarter of next year.”
Early 2025 sounds like a quick turnaround on paper, but we first heard about the Meta-LG Quest Pro 2 in September 2023, with a target price of $2,000, $1,500 less than the Vision Pro But it’s $1,000 more expensive than Meta Quest Pro. Due to poor sales, the price dropped by $500 a few months after its release.
Before shifting his focus to this LG prototype, Mehta reportedly canceled another Pro 2 prototype, codenamed “Funston,” scheduled for release this year.
According to KED, the meeting will solidify plans drawn up months ago and discuss how to meet the early 2025 release date, “what services to include and how to devise a sales strategy. ” is said to be considered.
LG will handle the hardware and Meta will handle the software, but the report says the Quest Pro 2 will switch to a new operating system based on LG’s WebOS, combined with Meta’s own on-device AI.
Meta also plans to bring its AI technology to LG’s home appliances (like TVs), possibly as a virtual assistant chatbot via remote control. It will likely take longer for Meta’s “human-level AI” to become a commercial product.
Meta is cornering the market in gaming VR, but when it comes to productivity XR headsets, it has to compete with the Apple Vision Pro, the rumored Samsung XR headset, Sony’s XR headset, and even the Huawei XR headset. not. In this environment, it makes sense for Meta to partner with a major manufacturer that has experience in both the hardware and software aspects, giving Meta’s rivals an advantage.
Its biggest rival, the Apple Vision Pro, benefits from the App Store and has access to thousands of apps, while Meta gets more productivity apps to create XR-enabled software for the Quest Pro. I was having a hard time. It also has a reputation as a great device for streaming content on virtual theaters like Disney+.
The Quest 3 has a surprisingly good selection of media apps, but they’re strictly VR apps and don’t have mixed reality passthrough or futuristic controls like the Vision Pro offers. But in theory, a partnership with LG could help Meta expand into regular streaming app partners.
It’s true that the Meta Quest UI is considered the weak point of the headset. LG’s WebOS isn’t a particularly advanced operating system, but given that XR headsets typically use giant rectangular floating displays, it’s interesting to see how the TV-based OS translates well to mixed reality. You can see.
Additionally, LG’s display manufacturing experience helps Meta close the gap with Apple Vision Pro, which offers an incredible 11.5 million pixels per eye of visual realism. Productivity headsets should theoretically be worn by workers all day long and require a clear visual experience so users can avoid eye strain and headaches.
Is this enough to justify Meta charging people (allegedly) $2,000 for the Quest Pro 2? It depends on whether they can pull it off and bring their productivity software to other headsets. In that case, Meta could be an affordable alternative to Vision Pro.
