Meta Platforms announced on New Year’s Eve that it was “permanently lowering prices on Quest 2 and its accessories,” starting from 1 January.

Doing so would allow Meta to “do even more to make VR more affordable and bring even more people into the community.”

The Meta Quest 2 would feature the following specs and price tags:

• 128GB, $249.99 USD
• 256GB, $299.99 USD
• Refurbished 128GB, $229 USD
• Refurbished 256GB, $269 USD
• Elite Strap, $49.99 USD
• Carrying Case, $44.99 USD
• Elite Strap with Battery, $89.99 USD
• Active Pack, $59.99 USD
• Fit Pack, $39.99 USD

In addition to democratising VR hardware, Meta’s price cut also aims to lower the price for the world-famous Quest 2, which faced price hikes in July 2022.

At the time, a lack of advert revenues from a previous row with Apple Inc and worsening pressure on Meta’s Reality Labs research and development (R&D) funding forced the $100 spike in prices.

Bosworth Hints at 2024 AI-Powered Smart Glass Prototypes

The news comes just a week after The Verge’s Alex Heath interviewed Andrew Bosworth, Chief Technology Officer, Meta, who said the public may receive a glimpse of a prototypical pair of smart glasses this year.

Bosworth told Heath that there were some “pretty exciting” plans for Meta’s upcoming augmented reality (AR) smart glasses.

Continuing, he added that Meta had been “playing with it this year,” adding it was probably the “most exciting prototype that we’ve had to date.”

He added,

“I might get myself in trouble for saying this: I think it might be the most advanced piece of technology on the planet in its domain. In the domain of consumer electronics, it might be the most advanced thing that we’ve ever produced as a species.”

However, he noted that the device would be costly to develop and manufacture, echoing sentiments surrounding the Apple Vision Pro.

Despite this, Bosworth stated optimistically: “I think there’s a pretty good chance that people will get a chance to play with it in 2024.”

In the interview, he continued that the Menlo Park-based firm had been developing a prototype of its Ray-Ban smart glasses which incorporates a viewfinder in the heads-up display (HUD).

According to Bosworth, the company’s roadmap had been “bizarredly the right roadmap for contextual AI.”

Firstly, Meta developed its Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses complete with “a camera, microphones, speakers,” he said.

He continued that the next iteration of smart glasses would feature “one that has a display.”

“We were planning to do that. We all know that,” he added.

The Evolution of Meta’s Smart Glasses

The interview comes after Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder, Meta, announced further AI integrations into his firm’s smart glasses at the Connect 2023 event in September last year.

At the time, he announced that Meta’s Ray-Ban Stories would become “the first smart glasses that are built and shipping with Meta AI.”

Speaking further, Zuckerberg explained that people buying the smart glasses could receive portable, hands-free “state-of-the-art AI.”

Zuckerberg said at the time,

“Smart glasses are the ideal form factor for you to let an AI assistant see what you’re seeing and hear what you’re hearing. I think that the AI part of this is going to be just as important [for] smart glasses being widely adopted as any of the other augmented reality features.”

Functionality involved multimodal AI for translating signs, resolving issues, and identifying environmental objects. Following the debut of Meta’s Llama-2 AI platform, the company has stepped up its efforts to incorporate the emerging technology into its family of products.

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