Meta moves the VR computer off the head and into a pocket-sized puck

Somebody has to carry the puck. Meta's VR Glasses move the compute hardware, the battery and the storage off the head and into a pocket-sized unit on a tether. Inside it: a Qualcomm Snapdragon Reality Elite, 128GB of storage and 12GB of RAM ^[4]. For a shared-device program, that is a second item per user to charge and account for, and it has to live somewhere on a body that might be wearing scrubs. The Verge's roundup did not report the puck's weight ^[20].

Meta says the glasses are "five times lighter than Meta Quest 3" at 100g ^[2]. Taking that comparison at face value puts the Quest 3 at about 500g ^[1].

The panel is a 5K micro OLED with 2412 x 2288 pixels per eye at up to 120Hz ^[5], which multiplies out to about 5.5 million pixels an eye ^[2]. Meta named the use those pixels are for: connect the glasses to a Mac or Windows laptop and run them as a virtual external display, with an option for a virtual surface keyboard and touchpad ^[6].

The library comes across. The VR Glasses have access to the full Meta Quest catalog of apps and games, and they support Xbox Cloud Gaming ^[7]. A team that already built for Quest has a 2027 destination for the same build. The rest of the pitch is media and presence: Meta calls the device "the first IMAX Enhanced certified VR device ever" ^[10]. A "hologram" feature builds a "photorealistic digital version of your face" for calls ^[11].

The product Meta is shipping next month was defined by subtraction. The Verge called the highlight of the new Ray-Ban Meta Audio "the feature they don't have", meaning built-in cameras, which have sparked privacy and harassment concerns around Meta's other glasses ^[12]. They play music, take calls and talk to an AI assistant, and they cannot take a picture or record video ^[12]. The frames weigh 43g ^[13] and run up to 12 hours per charge, or 48 with the case ^[14], which is three extra full charges sitting in the case ^[3]. They start at $349 on October 13 ^[15]. The camera version, Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3, starts at $449 with nine hours of battery, an hour more than Gen 2 ^[16]. It keeps the LED recording indicator that Meta issued a privacy fix for last month ^[19].

So the $1,299 device is for the buyer who wants what an Apple Vision Pro does at a lower price. That is how The Verge positions it: pricier than the Meta Ray-Ban Display, cheaper than the Vision Pro, similar features ^[9]. The $349 device is for the person who has to get a wearable through a compliance review.

Two variables sort this line-up for anyone planning a deployment: whether the use needs a display in the line of sight, and whether the room allows a camera. No display and no camera is the Audio, $349, October 13 ^[15]. No display with a camera is Gen 3 at $449 ^[16]. A display at glasses weight is the Ray-Ban Display, which the VR Glasses cost more than ^[9]. Full VR with the Quest catalog is $1,299 in spring 2027 ^[8], and the user carries the puck.