Meta VR Glasses Reveal 100g Headset at $1,299 for Spring

Meta Connect 2026 delivered Meta VR Glasses, a 100-gram OLED headset with eye tracking and Dolby Vision, launching spring 2027 at $1,299.

Meta's Meta Connect 2026 keynote produced the biggest reveal of the event: Meta VR Glasses, an entirely new device that blends high-end headset features with a traditional glasses design. Previously known by the codename "Phoenix," the device weighs roughly 100 grams — about as much as a deck of cards and roughly one-fifth the weight of the Meta Quest 3, per The Ghost Howls. Mashable reports the glasses arrive in spring 2027 for $1,299, positioned as a lighter alternative to the Apple Vision Pro and Galaxy XR, and pitched as a personal cinema with productivity, entertainment, and VR gaming as its three core use cases.

The surprise is how far Meta pushed weight and optics into a glasses-like form factor. According to The Ghost Howls, the specs include OLED displays at 2412×2288 resolution, a 70°×66° field of view, a Snapdragon Reality Elite chipset, 12GB of RAM, and eye, hand, and face tracking with optional controllers. Reviewers who went hands-on reported amazing resolution, bright colors, and working hand-and-eye interactions — though The Ghost Howls cautions the demos were heavily scripted. The clear trade-offs: the limited field of view makes it better for watching movies than playing VR games, and $1,300 is far more than most people want to pay for an XR device.

Mashable reports the headset connects to external devices via USB-C, can project a virtual display into your environment, place a virtual keyboard on any flat surface, and support the full Meta Quest VR game library plus Xbox Cloud Gaming titles. Entertainment features include spatial audio, Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision, and an IMAX Enhanced cinema mode, with James Cameron among the celebrities featured praising display quality. The most striking new feature is Hologram Calling, which projects a lifelike full-body avatar into the display during a video call. However, The Ghost Howls notes hands-on reviews found the "Holograms" are 2.5D stereoscopic billboards rather than true volumetric Codec Avatars — the illusion breaks when you move around.

The Ghost Howls reports many attendees described the device as "what the Vision Pro should have been, and for a third of the price," a comparison that triggered heated debate among Apple fans online. The competitive pressure is real: The Ghost Howls also relays Mark Gurman's report that Apple has four Vision Pro successor prototypes in testing — including one that moves all compute to an external puck, like Meta's design — but may not launch until 2028–29 as Apple focuses on smart glasses. At launch, The Ghost Howls says 70+ games will be compatible, including Beat Saber Flow, a hand-tracking-focused update to Beat Saber.

Meta VR Glasses land in spring 2027, but The Ghost Howls reports Meta already shipped SDK v207, letting developers build with simulators and emulators without hardware, plus a Quest tool to simulate the new field of view. Meta also announced $1 million prize-pool contests for Muse AI apps and hand-tracking VR/MR applications. Elsewhere at the event, Mashable details Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 smart glasses from $249 (Adventurer) with six microphones, Dolby Atmos, and aviator styles — $449 for standard frames and $399 for Lisa from Blackpink editions — plus camera-free Meta Audio Glasses at $249, and the $799 Ray-Ban Display finally available without supply problems.