Meta's new featherweight VR Glasses take a swing at Apple Vision Pro with IMAX and holographic calls

Meta is no stranger to VR and has been selling VR headsets under the Quest lineup for almost a decade. These devices, however, have been bulky and unwieldy, which is why Meta seems to take a different approach with its newest headset. Unlike previous Quest headsets, Meta’s new VR Glasses assume a sunglass-like shape, somewhat reminiscent of the Oakley Meta Vanguard sports glasses. Despite that, they are claimed to be Meta’s “most advanced” glasses with impressive visual quality and cinema-watching capabilities without weighing down your head or cutting you off from the outer world.

The most immediate thing to note about the new Meta VR Glasses is how light they are. They weigh just 100 grams, which, Meta says, is five times lighter than the Quest 3 headset. To take the load off the headset, these glasses use a puck that’s tethered to them via an optical cable. The puck handles all the processing and packs the storage as well as the battery for the glasses. The puck also features a capacitive surface that serves as a trackpad to navigate through the interface.

The glasses themselves focus largely on ensuring stunning visuals with 5K resolution per eye. Each side has a micro-OLED display with 37 PPD (pixels per degree), surpassing the Apple Vision Pro and the Meta Quest 3.

Meta adds that the tiny pancake lenses deliver cinema-grade quality; Dolby Vision makes the colors even more appealing, while Dolby Audio brings immersive sound to the headset. These are also the first VR glasses certified for IMAX Enhanced, letting you enjoy movies in a 1.90:1 aspect ratio, slightly taller than the standard 16:9, as well as in 3D. Some supported titles include Marvel’s The Avengers and Black Panther.

Meta also expects to bring a lot more titles from Prime Video, YouTube, Crunchyroll, Plex, ESPN, and more by next year. It is also working with ESPN to bring 8K sports streaming with 180-degree visibility, and this might also be available on other Quest headsets.

The puck we mentioned above also houses a Snapdragon Reality Elite chipset and delivers up to three hours of battery for continued usage.

In addition to entertainment, the VR Glasses are also suitable for work. Meta claims it can project a virtual keyboard and trackpad onto any flat surface, letting you use it without any extra hardware. The full-color passthrough allows actual lighting from the surroundings to show in the background.

Along with that, the Meta VR Glasses also get Hologram Calling, extending Vision Pro’s virtual avatars during video calls with a photorealistic replica of the other person.

Meta’s VR Glasses are priced at $1,299 and will be available starting in Spring 2027.