Meta has made no secret of the fact that it is planning on releasing a new virtual reality (VR) headset towards the end of 2022, currently codenamed Project Cambria. Recent details suggest it won’t rival Meta Quest 2 as it’ll be focused on the high-end, more enterprise area of the market. With new reports suggesting it’ll cost $800 USD, the company has unusually come out and said that’s not the case, costing “significantly” more than $800.
The Information (paywalled) published a report saying it had seen an internal roadmap of Meta’s VR headset plans, suggesting that four are slated to arrive between now and 2024. One of those will be Project Cambria which Meta has described as: “more focused on work use cases and eventually replacing your laptop or work setup.”
Suggesting that Meta is targeting a $799 price tag, Road to VR reports that a Meta spokesperson rubbished those claims, saying they were inaccurate and that Project Cambria will be “significantly higher” than the claimed price. How much so wasn’t divulged but such a statement doesn’t exactly indicate a jump of $100 or so.
While no specifications have yet been released, Project Cambria will house plenty of features including eye and face tracking capabilities, controllers that could possibly track themselves, full-colour passthrough mixed reality (MR) and possibly pancake optics for a slimmer profile. It is far more likely that Project Cambria will be HTC Vive Focus 3’s main rival, a standalone headset priced at $1300 (£1272.00 GBP).
As for all those other headsets mentioned in the report, one of those is the second iteration of Cambria (codenamed Funston) supposedly arriving in 2024. The other two are next-generation Quest’s, reportedly codenamed Stinson and Cardiff, slated to arrive in 2023 and 2024 respectively. Whilst certainly an aggressive hardware rollout, with supply lines as they are, these launch windows should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Project Cambria is slated to arrive in September 2022, most likely showcased during Meta’s annual Connect event which takes place around that time. For continued updates on Meta’s VR and AR plans, keep reading gmw3.
via Mint VR