I’ve worn the Meta VR Glasses, and they’re coming to eat Apple's lunch

Meta Connect just ended, and the biggest announcement of the night for me was easily the debut of Meta’s VR Glasses — even if they were leaked ahead of schedule by Meta’s own prescription tutorial.

Ahead of their official reveal, I got to spend 30 minutes with the new tech, experiencing a wide range of demos that might have convinced me this isn’t merely Meta’s best VR headset yet — it could be the best VR headset I’ve used yet.

The only downside is we’ll be waiting a little longer to wear it.

The headset isn’t due to launch until “Spring 2027” (March, April or May), but at least we know it’ll cost just $1,299 when it does land (price elsewhere TBC). (Image credit: Meta) Slimmer than ever Let’s start with the design.

Slimmer and lighter than anything that has come before (the actual headset part you wear is down to just around 100g); this headset looks like a pair of glasses.

They even swap the headstrap for glasses stems to stay on your head.

The bulk of the weight is instead housed in a puck you carry in your pocket — a lot like the puck used by the Apple Vision Pro or Samsung Galaxy XR .

The big difference here is Meta’s isn’t just a battery pack, it also houses all of the headset’s compute.

It’s tethered to the headset via an optical cable, but this wire never got in the way while I used the headset — whether I was up and moving, playing a game like Beat Saber Flux, or sitting being productive with multitasking across multiple windows.

The headset can support controllers; however, it doesn’t come with any in the box.

Instead, you’ll need to rely on hand controls: either reaching out and grabbing, or the look and pinch controls popularized by Apple’s Vision Pro and Samsung’s Galaxy XR.

Lastly, I should note that, despite being called glasses, this is a headset.

They have an opaque front cover that only appears to be see-through to the wearer because of passthrough.

This live video feed of the real world isn’t yet perfect (it’s still a little grainy and there’s a slight delay), though it seems at least as good as the competition based on my experience so far. (Image credit: Meta) They do support pescription inserts too.