A look at Meta’s strategic moves impacting enterprise XR adoption, including OpenXR standardization, dev updates, and future AR smart glasses initiatives
It’s another major month for Meta. As the XR shark tank grows with AndriodXR, Samsung’s Moohan, and other competitive players entering the immersive space race, the Quest innovator and the general XR industry are looking to retain their foothold on the lucrative market.
After hitting roughly $100 billion in XR spending earlier this year and adding an additional $50 million to revitalise the Metaverse, Zuckerberg’s firm wants to maintain its position.
However, with a growing market and Meta’s own hands in other areas like AI and social media, the job ahead is tough.
This past month has provided another vital moment for the firm, as it’s clearly ready for a busy Connect 2025. Here are the big stories for Meta in March.
Meta Debuts Developer Passthrough Access
This month saw the debut of Meta Quest developer passthrough access, which gives more control over the platform’s creator community. This update comes as demand increases following competitors offering the same access on other XR headsets.
The update comes as part of Meta XR Core SDK Version 74.1, which includes Passthrough Camera API (PCA) as a “Public Experimental API” feature.
The update notes said:
This new API provides access to the forward-facing RGB cameras and is provided to allow developers to improve the production quality of their apps (e.g. lighting and effects) and to drive ML/CV pipelines for apps like object recognition.
Other features of the Meta XR Core SDK Version 74.1 update include:
- Unity version 2022.3.15f1 support and direct bug report support for Unity Editor’s Project Setup Rules
- Improved Microgesture hand tracking support for Quest 2, 3, 3s and, interestingly, the discontinued Pro device
- An Immersvie Debugger tool, which left its experimental phase
- A new Building Blocks feature for adding common features to XR applications
- New SDK welcome screen and notification framework
- Audio To Expressions improvements
Meta CTO Creates MR/VR Classification Confusion
This month marked another public statement regarding Reality Labs’ vision for XR going forward, coming from Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth. The XR leader seemingly wants to push Meta as the continued leader in XR in 2025 and beyond.
The recent comments include a somewhat controversial statement exclaiming internal efforts to use the term MR over VR. This relates to the current Quest portfolio, which supports VR and MR abilities, with MR simply meaning applications or hardware that support full and partial passthrough features.
Bosworth noted that “we use the term mixed reality more often in public and internally because there was some confusion in the marketplace.”
Bosworth also stated:
Since Apple leaned so hard into marketing mixed reality features for the Apple Vision Pro, we wanted to make sure people were aware that Quest 3 in particular was as good as, or in my opinion better than, what they get elsewhere. We found out through market research, which we do, that this was a key thing.
The controversy stems from VR users feeling left out of the conversation. However, this is not the case, as Bosworth explained that the terminology is merely there to attract more people to the MR space.
In a follow-up statement, Bosworth clarified:
This change in terminology really doesn’t impact people already in the community, they know what this stuff is. But we want to grow the community! And this was a key point of confusion for first timers!
The news comes after the Meta CTO declared that 2025 will be significant, “the most critical year in my 8 years at Reality Labs.”
Speaking on the metaverse and Horizon Worlds, Boz explained that the service’s mobile application “absolutely has to break out for our long-term plans to have a chance. ” also remarking:
If you don’t feel the weight of history on you, then you aren’t paying attention. This year likely determines whether this entire effort will go down as the work of visionaries or a legendary misadventure-We haven’t actually made a dent in the world yet.
Meta Leaders Claim AR Smart Glasses are the Future of Mobile Computing
This month, two more Meta leaders spoke about the future of AR smart glasses, a space Meta is attempting to lead with its current at-market and prototype products. Meta Vice Presidents Mark Rabkin and Alex Himel exclaimed the importance of this technology in the media.
Rabkin said that Meta is covering a spectrum of XR devices, from AR Ray-Ban smart glasses to MR Quest headsets which cover a “whole spectrum of devices to help people augment their life and improve their life in the best way possible, given what they need.”
Himel also added:
The thing about AI right now is that it feels like something that is infinitely capable, but people often don’t know where to start – it’s an empty text box or a microphone you can say anything into and it’s like, ‘where do I start?.’ The announcements we had last year are really meant to take specific use cases and make them work great – for example you can look at a phone number and say, call it. AI is probably the thing I’m most excited about, it has the ability to open up a session with AI where you’re constantly chatting back and forth and it’s constantly aware of what you’re looking at. I feel like the potential of AI is pretty huge and we’re excited to really lean into it.
Himel explained that the firm’s experimental Orion AR device – first shown at Connect last year – demonstrates “that true augmented reality glasses are going to be available earlier than we had previously thought.”
The VP stated that Orion showcases a device which puts a large field of view into a “glasses form factor, where you can render virtual content on top of the world that you’re physically looking at,” going beyond what the current at-market Ray-Ban device can do.
Himel continued:
When we talk about augmented reality, we talk about looking at the physical world and seeing digital stuff on top of that, whether that’s digital television instead of having to buy a real one, whether that’s a virtual picture frame on your desk, and we showed that it was possible – which I think is a major milestone.
The VPs clearly outline how Meta sees AR smart glasses as the next step of mobile computing, evolving forward from smartphones. Himel said the emerging device category is “fundamentally” attempting to connect users with each other.
“If you go to use the [AR] device and you can’t connect with one of the most important people to you, then I think we failed at the job,” Himel added.
LG ends Meta XR Venture to Focus on Core Products and R&D
LG Electronics has officially shut down its XR product division following unproductive discussions about a potential partnership with Meta, which continues to perform well in various areas.
What started with a high-profile meeting between Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and LG executives William Cho and Park Hyoung-sei has not resulted in the expected collaboration. Although unconfirmed, rumours dating back to 2023 suggested that Meta was considering contracting LG to produce a competitor to Apple’s Vision Pro.
Recently, Meta announced it would rebrand the Quest system software as Horizon OS and partner with manufacturers such as Asus and Lenovo, without mentioning LG.
A spokesperson for LG said:
Although the development organization under the HE Business Division has disappeared, research and development is being conducted within the CTO division. We decided to delay the commercialization plan and focus on R&D.
Meta Unleashes OpenXR As Standard Gaming Development Path
Meta is set to introduce a new level of development freedom this week with the release of its v74 SDK. This update makes OpenXR the recommended framework for creating immersive experiences across Unity, Unreal, and Godot.
Since joining the OpenXR initiative in 2016, Meta has been laying the groundwork for this moment. With the OpenXR Meta package now matching the capabilities of the Oculus XR plugin, developers can build their projects once and deploy them across multiple platforms without losing the unique features of Horizon OS.
As the XR landscape becomes increasingly crowded and competitive, developers are eager to reach more users without the hassle of needing to rebuild their projects for each platform.
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