Meta CTO says the Quest Pro paved the way for the Quest 3S

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The Meta Quest Pro was a step up from previous headsets like the Quest 3 and Quest 3S, says Meta’s CTO.

Technology and business expert Ben Thompson had a long and interesting interview with Meta’s CTO and head of Reality Labs Andrew Bosworth. It covers a lot of things: The development of Meta Quest, competition from Apple Vision Pro, a prototype of the Orion AR glasses, and much more.

During the conversation, Thompson brings up the Quest Pro and asks Bosworth if it was a mistake. Here is Bosworth’s response:

“So it’s funny, Mark and I have this argument all the time. Quest Pro, you probably won’t get to Quest 3 without Quest Pro. Quest Pro was the tool that allowed us to open the lenses of pancakes, it has allowed us to pioneer eye tracking and face tracking, which we will use in the future, it opened up all these pieces, and there is this kind of statement in the hardware area, which like Gen Three is what you wish your Gen One could be, but there’s no way around it, no way to jump ahead.

Bosworth admits that the Quest Pro didn’t sell as well as Meta had hoped, but “it ended up being an important tool to get us to the 3S,” he says.

You can listen to or read the full interview on Stratechery.

Meta Quest Pro: The verdict is not final

Meta Quest Pro was announced in October 2022 and was not well received. Meta dropped the price from $1,500 to $1,000 after a few months and even offered units to developers a year after launch.

The reasons for Quest Pro’s failure are many: it was too expensive for what it was offered, it had an old chipset, no dedicated software, poor performance. However, the Quest Pro brought some important improvements, such as the pancake lenses that reside on the Quest 3 and the hidden Quest Touch Pro controls.

Last week, Meta announced that the Quest Pro will be discontinued at the end of the year, and a possible successor in 2027 has been canceled in favor of another product model.

Bosworth’s answer is not surprising. What can the head of Reality Labs say other than that the Quest Pro has been a good investment for the Meta? Then again, he’s not wrong.

While many industry analysts today question why Meta would have released a device like the Quest Pro in the first place, they may look good on the device for a decade when part of the it and its importance as a stepping stone to Meta hardware development. more obvious.

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