Meta Connect 2023: Everything Announced at the Meta Quest 3 Event

Meta Connect is Meta’s two-day virtual hardware event, focused on AI and virtual, mixed, and augmented realities, and this year the star of the show is the Meta Quest 3, and I think the Quest 3 is exactly what people have been waiting for. But the standalone VR headset wasn’t alone.

Meta announced a bunch of new products, of course including the Meta Quest 3, but Emu AI and the new Rayban Meta Smartglasses were also there, apparently moving toward Meta’s stated goal of furthering human connection (whatever that means). We’ve gone ahead and gathered everything announced at the show right here, so you can find out what matters to you.

Meta Quest 3 – Mixed Reality for All?

The Meta Quest 2 was a virtual reality headset, and while the Meta Quest 3 can do that, it differs by having cameras that allow your content to exist in the same world you do. It does this with two dedicated color sensors and a depth sensor that will allow you to do things like previewing furniture in your room.

Meta Quest 3 will also support Xbox Cloud Streaming. That doesn’t mean that everything on Xbox Game Pass will be VR, but instead, it’s taking the Apple Vision Pro approach, projecting a giant virtual screen into your environment that you can sit and play games on with a regular controller.

Under the hood, the Meta Quest 3 is powered by the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, which has a massively more powerful GPU and will allow more VR games to run natively on the Quest, when previously you’d have to play games tethered to one of the best gaming PCs.

Meta claims the Meta Quest 3 is the most powerful VR and MR headset ever, but we’ll have to wait and see how it pans out in our review. However, with the price tag going up to $499, it might be a little harder to afford for “everyone.” But either way, you can buy it on Oct. 10, 2023.

Emu – AI Comes to Instagram

AI has been everywhere over the last year, but Meta is looking to democratize the tech further. Emu, then, isn’t really a product, but more an initiative to bring AI models to Facebook and Instagram. The idea here is to use AI image generation and manipulation to create fun photos to send to friends and even create custom stickers at the drop of a dime, whether you’re in chat or commenting on a friend’s post.

Beyond Meta’s own AI models, the company is using this to create a platform for developers to develop AI models for Meta’s massive user base. So, get ready for a deluge of “smart” video filters – an even bigger deluge than we already have.

Of course, Meta is also using this as an opportunity to create Meta AI, an AI chatbot where you can ask questions and get AI-generated answers. But instead of it being one single chatbot, it’s a wide collection of different chatbots that each specialize in their own special categories, and of course, they’re “played” by celebrities.

Rayban Meta Smartglasses – Stylish Streaming?

The Rayban Meta Smartglasses are back, and this time Meta offers even more styles. These are also the first smart glasses that are shipping with Meta AI built-in. You can use the glasses to interact with AI whenever you want.

You can use the AI to ask questions and get real-time answers projected into the glasses themselves. Starting next year, this AI can do everything from translating signs you spot out in the wild to helping you solve problems that show up in the wild. It can do this by using built-in cameras to scan what you’re looking at, so if we’re going off of Meta’s example, you can look at a leaky faucet, ask Meta AI how to fix it, and get advice.

You’ll also be able to livestream your point of view from your Rayban Meta Smartglasses to your audience, whether that’s just friends and family or a wider group of people.

If you want these new smart glasses, you can get them on Oct. 17, starting at $299.