Welcome to episode 73 of Lost in Immersion, your weekly 45-minute stream about innovation. As VR and AR veterans, we will discuss the latest news of the immersive industry. Seb is not here today, he's working somewhere. But Fabien is here and we have a lot to talk about. As the summer was quite calm, September is really dense in immersive news. So, Fabien, what do you have to say today? Yeah, thanks. We actually had to choose between all the news because there are so many to talk about. Let's first talk about Meta. So, it was MetaConnect a couple of days ago. And they announced a lot of different things. We chose to focus on two news. So, the MetaQuest 3S, the new low-budget device. And they also announced Orion, which is the standalone, well, kind of standalone, we will talk about it, augmented reality glasses. But let's start with the Quest 3S. So, actually, looking at the design itself, we know it already because it was leaked like months ago. And so now we know that it was actually a real leak. And the design is exactly the one that was shown in these leaks. So, basically, in short, it's a Quest 2 with the mixed reality upgrade. So, mixed reality being the ability to see the real world reprojected into the headset. It's quite interesting to look also at the comparison between the different headsets. First of all, the price. The price difference is not that big, you know. So, this is in yen because I'm in Japan, but I think in USD it's around 300 for the 3S and 500 for the 3. So, it's a bit more than half of the price. And if we look at the hardware, so the processor are the same. So, Snapdragon XR2 Gen2. And the displays and the lenses are actually the same than on the Oculus 2. So, if we look at the lenses of the Oculus 2, you can see it's really like the same. The adjustment of the IP is exactly the same as well. So, I'm really curious to see how the mixed reality looks inside these lenses. Especially because, you know, we talked about a lot of the position of the cameras on the headset. And if they are aligned with the eyes and so on. Here, this seems to be more so aligned with the one on the Quest 3. So, we'll see maybe they are able to take all the learnings and updates that they made on the Quest 3 since one year ago. And put them back on the 3S. So, that would be very interesting to have a look at. No surprise, no eye tracking, of course, you know, on that type of budget. I don't think they were able to... Sorry, it was obvious that they won't be able to do it so early. And... So, yeah, basically that's it. On purchase, it comes with Batman Arkham Shadow included. So, it's kind of similar with the Quest 3 where Asgard Wars 2 was included in the purchase. So, I don't know, maybe that's a hint into targeting a bit more the gamers. Or, you know, Christmas is still a bit far but slowly coming around. Or Black Friday. And with this type of price, maybe they think that the people will purchase it without the same hesitation as purchasing the Quest 3. So, we'll see. And I'm curious to know what you think. Let's see if I have something else to say for now. Oh, so the controllers, same controllers as the Quest 3. And, yeah, that's it for our first introduction to the Quest 3S. What do you think, Guillaume? Well, first of all, I would like to come to do just a follow-up to what... I tried to do a short last week about MetaConnect and especially the meta strategy, communication strategy. And apparently, Leaks is part of their global communication. As you mentioned, these headsets leaked three times during this year. It started in March, I guess, then June and just a few weeks back. And we didn't have any communication after those leaks. And apparently, well, on the MetaConnect days, they just announced the headset and it's ready to order just like right now. So, apparently, it's part of their communication. No more long-term or middle-term communication announcement and so on. So, well, apparently, it's part of the meta strategy, I guess. So, just a bit weird, especially when they are announcing Orion. We will talk about this after, but they are just like two complete different strategies of communication with those headsets. And it's very, very troubling. So, it's quite like, well, the 3S is a cheap version of the MetaQuest 3. And it's like they don't really care. Yeah. Oh, you have a new headset. It's cheap. You can buy it. Okay. Well, I felt a bit like this with the announcements. It was a bit weird, I guess. So, this is the first thing about the Quest 3S. The other one is, as you mentioned, it's just an upgraded version of the Quest 2 with the color pass-through and a bit of CPU, GPU improvement. What is bothering me is, we mentioned it like a few weeks back when we talked about the distortion. We said that because of the Quest 3 and their upgrades, now they are mastering the distortion and so on with the color pass-through. And by changing the lenses from Pancakes to Fresnel, I guess they are starting from scratch with the distortion management because it's a completely different way of displaying. And we know that Fresnel has a way more distortion and artifact in those. So, I'm not really sure about how they will manage that. And the second thing is that maybe I'm answering my question because they are using as well a lower field of view. So, maybe having this lower field of view will correct some of those distortions as well. So, I'm very curious to see the quality of the video pass-through because if it's not high level, there is no real advantage of changing your Quest 2 to the Quest 3S. And I guess this is a trap for Meta because they have really high expectations on this color pass-through as we have the Quest 3 comparison now. So, I guess that's it because there is not much to say about this despite the fact that they announced the Quest 2 and Quest Pro end as well. So, when you talked about Black Friday, I guess Black Friday will be the occasion for them to just finish their stocks on the Quest Pro and Quest 2. There won't be any Quest 3S specials. Maybe the Quest 3, but I saw that on your comparison that there has been a cut in price already. Because the Quest 3S was perfectly after the price of the Quest 3. So, they changed it a bit to reduce the gap between the prices of those two headsets. But yeah, that's pretty much it. And do you think that this low price, well kind of low price, it's still expensive, but low price will be able to attract new users to VR and MR? Or is it existing users, maybe they have a Quest 2, it's a bit old. So, okay, I can get the 3S. What do you think about that? I guess there will be a global conversion of the Quest 2. I include myself. I'm a Quest 2 user right now. Quest 3 was too expensive for me. And what is really interesting is the color path through, of course, to do some augmented reality. And the key is here, if the quality is high for this kind of feature, I guess the majority of the Quest 2 users will switch to the Quest 3S. And those Quest 2 will find a new owner on marketplaces for a cheaper price. So, maybe we'll see a switch or maybe a slight increase in the number of users. But it won't be that much of a deal for Meta. They won't increase by two or three, their number of users, I guess. Because the price is the same as the Quest 2 when it was released. So, no very, yeah. And it's basically the same headset. So, I don't see quite much difference in terms of strategy and audience for this headset. And it's really fun that you're bringing this because I guess it's Meta or maybe a journalist that brought the fact that there are non-headset wearers. I don't remember how they put that through. Well, they considered that there are lots of people that are interested in VR. But the fact of putting a headset on their face is completely incompatible with their way of using tech. And yeah, it's basically Orion. Orion should be the answer to that. But I leave it that to you for you to do the introduction of the Orion project. Okay. Yeah, it's a very nice transition. So, Orion, I mean, for a very long time, I think since we started this podcast, we are talking about the AR glasses. AR being like assisted reality with glasses like, you know, Vuzix or X-Ray or this kind of area of glasses. And the headset and how the future is probably in between. And I think with Orion, this is the first time we are seeing this with something else that we talk a bit later in the podcast, another device. So, Orion. I will scroll down right at the bottom of the page to show what's inside. So, sorry, what's the components of the device. So, the glasses. So, it looks like a Ray-Ban, but a bit bulky. There is the wristband. And there is also like a processing unit on the side. So, I think what's interesting to see. So, the wristband is. So, it's not hand tracking. It's like a gesture and finger tracking. So, like pinch. And there is also force feedback on that wristband. So, I think, I guess that's one technical element that the processing unit and the glasses don't have to process. You know, maybe they can track the hands, but the finger and gesture recognition is done by the bracelet. In the interview of the CTO of Meta, they talk about the processing unit. And he says, like, basically, they want that to be like your wallet, for example. You have it always near you, but you kind of forget about it. And when you go out, you take it with you. So, it's kind of this that they want for this processing unit in contrast to the one. So, the battery of the Vision Pro that you have to always take with you. So, looking at some of the interviews and the reports that people were able to try it. So, of course, it's embedded with Meta.ai. So, you can interact and discuss. And it seems like there is a visual understanding coming through the glasses. And I wanted to show something else as well. What is it? So, we see, yeah. So, we see, you know, here as well, the pinch that is done from the... Oh, I cannot pause. Anyway, the pinch is done thanks to the bracelet. People seem to say that they are quite bright inside. So, the rendering inside is quite bright. And they were saying that they saw some distortions as well. So, maybe it's due to all the lenses that are needed to have such a large field of view. And what else? Yeah. So, it's only like a preview device. So, it won't be available. Maybe some people will be able to test it. Maybe some developers as well. But for now, there are big problems. It's what they say in a lot of interviews, the price. Like, it's not at a price that is cost effective. Maybe it will cost, I don't know, 10K USD or something like that to sell it right now. So, they are working on, yeah, improving the cost effectiveness of the device. So, yeah. That's it for our first introduction. What do you think, Liam? First, AR glasses. Yeah. So, about those glasses. The first thing that impressed me the most is the field of view. They announced a 76 degrees field of view for these. It's quite double as the HoloLens 2, which is a very great improvement, I guess. For me, in these AR glasses, the optical glasses, the most problematic thing was the field of view. Then you have the brightness. Apparently, they have some dynamic brightness modification for you to see, even if it's a very bright environment or if it's a bit more dark. So, we have to see that. Then, about the design. For me, when I saw the glasses, I felt like an uncanny effect, but for the hardware. Meaning that it's close to glasses, but not enough for you to be satisfied with this. I talked with some other people around me. After this reflection, they found it a bit ridiculous. It looks like a toy you would be putting on your nose for cosplay or whatever. The limit is here when it's not high-tech enough, but it looks like glasses. It's too bulky for you to feel that you would like this device for you to use on a daily basis. I'll let you talk about this afterward. Another thing, you talked about the price. We have to keep in mind that Meta, globally, is on the low-middle cost in VR and AR. So, maybe when they are talking about something too expensive, it's not that expensive. Meaning that it could be like $4,000 USD. So, it could be just a bit higher than the Apple Vision Pro, but it's not in their global price strategy. I guess if they were releasing a $4,000 headset, I'm not sure they would be selling this appropriately. Because it's not compatible with their brand. Apple can do that, Meta can't, because it's not what they are used to do. The price thing is not that important, I guess. I guess they talked about dev kits in the near future, so it won't be that expensive, I guess. And the other thing is that when you are looking at the global design, it's a design that is quite... You could see that in production, alright? It's not a prototype, it's something that they could sell very easily, very fast. So, I'm not sure the price is the right answer to why they are not releasing it. I read an article by Tom Fiske. I really like what he's doing about the immersive world. And he asked a very good question. It was, why did they present this device now? Because apparently, this is something that won't be released until two years. There won't be much demos about this. So, why now? So, one of these hypotheses was that Meta is trying to get the attention of high-end developers, for them to be hired by Meta, for them to be part of this project. So, I guess it's a valid point. And I can't remember the other one. Because for me, if you can remember, they announced that they were working on those glasses like one year and a half back. And I guess they committed themselves too much for not presenting something at Connect this year. And I think that they have some technical difficulties or maybe their roadmap was not met. And they are not able to release the glasses in 2025 as they were expecting it. But they presented it anyway. So, I guess it's maybe something in the middle. But to be in this AR race, you have the Apple Vision Pro. They announced that they were working on better glasses, which to my point is quite the truth. It's different devices. But for the AR global adoption, I guess those glasses are better than the Apple Vision Pro are. But yeah, I guess they have some issues down the road with those. And they are not able to release them as they expected. So, yeah. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah, it could be so many things indeed. It could be like a first-mover position. Like, okay, this is our vision for what's the next steps on AR. And it could be like maybe just announcing the 3S was not enough. Like maybe it will be just like, okay, this year Meta didn't announce a lot of things, just a cheap headset. So, they had to like impress with this. Or it could be as well, and I think we talked about with your topic, is looking at the competition that is arriving for Orion and how they can be ahead of the competition. As you said, getting the attention of apps developer. We know like content is always the very big part that changes the game. Like back to the 3S, and we will never know, but will the 3S sell the same quantity if there was not Batman bundled with it? And maybe the people want to play with Batman. And so, the content is driving, will drive the sales of the 3S. And here, if maybe a bit similar to the Vision Pro, when people will buy this, and I don't think they will be cheap here, as you said, when they will be released. And there is no apps, or there is just like Instagram and Facebook and WhatsApp. I'm joking, but as you said, the content is probably something that would be key for this. Assuming the hardware works as good as expected. What do you think about the bracelet? I'm glad to see that the Mayu project is finally working. I think this is a really smart move, because the fact that they are using a wristband is just to make the glasses lighter with less technology inside of them. And I think this is a really smart move, because you can easily see how this kind of wristband could be coupled with a smart watch. And yeah, it's really making... Because they are announcing that the glasses are like 100 grams, so it's very, very light. Or maybe it's their goal, I can't remember. But yeah, basically, it's way less than the Apple Vision Pro that embeds all this technology for them to be able to use. And to be able to do the hand tracking and so on. So, no, it's a smart move. It's still on the prototype site, I guess. Because if you are looking at the design, you can see some very big... I call them the peels. It looks like peels. But testers said that you have to put the wristband really, really tight on your wrist. And it leaves marks. So stuff are leaving some marks on your skin. So it shows that it's really, really tight for it to work. But yeah, I can easily see this kind of device be the next generation of controllers. As what the Mayo should have been done, it was in 2016. So eight years ago. And it's really, really fun to see that all those old school tech, I don't know if you... All tech, like the Mayo or the VR Vena, that were bought nearly 10 years ago, are now mature enough to be released as products. So they were very ahead of their time. But the idea was there. Yeah. And about the processing unit, at first, I was a bit bothered by that. I was like, oh, again, something that you have to take on top of the glasses and on top of the bracelet. But the way that the CTO, his name is slipping my mind right now, but the way that he explained it, like something that you have on your desk and you have in your bag or in the pocket, it seems to be pretty small. So as I think about it... When I was thinking about the use case, it's like if you were just putting your smartphone on the table and just moving around in the room. So it makes sense, I guess, in terms of use case. And yeah, once again, very smart move to put all the power in this unit and just transfer the display through Wi-Fi to the glasses. So yeah, I guess it's the best approach we can have right now for us to get this very light design and something that looks like real glasses at some point. Okay. Well, I think it's a nice transition to your topic as well. Yeah. So let's do this right now. So I was on the three, but that's not what I want to show. So first of all, I would like to come back to something that happened two weeks ago, but we didn't really talk about. It's the IMMERSED drama, if I can call it this. Well, there was the official announcement of the IMMERSED glasses. Those glasses are dedicated to spatial computing. This is how they were advertised with very, very high resolution and tracking and so on. And there were lots of pre-orders and there were lots of expectations towards those glasses. And what happened is that their official presentation didn't show anything. And then the demonstration part or time, there were five more firmware issues with the glasses and nobody could try the glasses themselves. So it was a complete mess. Lots of journalists were brought from any part of the world to Austin, Texas. And they were there just to look at those glasses that are not the final design, I guess, or maybe like 95% of the final design, but it's not the product. And yeah, lots of journalists just were furious about the situation. Some of them tried one pair of working glasses to see what was going on there, but there was no tracking and it was a monocular, I guess. So not really the best way of trying an immersive device. And just as a follow-up, just like one week after that, the company just posted an update to show that the glasses are working. I would say it's too late because the hurt has been done. But you can see that you indeed have spatial computing capabilities, meaning that you have those flying windows and you have the hand tracking as well with the interface. But yeah, lots of backers and people that pre-ordered those glasses are really, really skeptical now about the device. So they will have to work a lot to make that disappear or maybe reassure the future customer of those glasses. So did you hear about this and what do you think? Yeah, I've seen the video. The first thing is like, why are they showing the MetaConnect homepage? I guess they released it the day of the MetaConnect. This is why they did that, just maybe to add some timestamp. But yeah, it's a bit weird. So I can understand the usage. So I'm working on my desk, I have the glasses on. So I look at my real screen and look at... Now I'm working in a cafe and it's socially acceptable to have these kind of real glasses on so I can work on many screens at the same time. So that's, I think, the north star of this kind of project. The goal is to have something that doesn't cause too much headache or eye strain, this kind of thing. But yeah, I'm not sure that we are there yet. And is Vizor one of the steps to go there? Maybe, but it is like... Yeah. That would be great to convince the consumers, especially because this target consumer are probably tech-savvy, they are looking at the news and probably will hear the news when they try to purchase and look around for competition. Well, yeah. One thing we didn't talk about for the Orion is the same special computing feature, meaning you can have those flying windows. And they also presented a cheap version, cheap persona version, just like they are trying to do the same as Apple did with the Apple Vision Pro. When you are making a call with the glasses, you can have your 3D scans and so on. But apparently it was just a cheap version in 2D, no 3D like you can have. So it's very fun to see that those are the new standards in the industry. If you want to do an immersive device and especially augmented or mixed reality one, you have to have those flying windows and those persona like avatar when you are calling someone. So it's very fun to see those markers as well. But yeah, what is the real value to this at this point? I'm not sure. Yeah. So this was the first thing I would like to show. And then those are something that I know you like. It's the glasses as well, the spectacles. We talked about this a lot, I guess, during those last episodes. And they finally made the presentation. So we had a live demo of those. So, of course, you can try them on in AR in the Snap app. But basically, I was quite disappointed in the presentation because they showcased the glasses. We immediately saw that the field of view was not very big. And indeed, it's the same field of view as the HoloLens 2. So it's 40-46 degrees. So we will still have this keyhole effect watching the augmentations part. What they showcased is their, as we can see on the screen, their menu management, which is you can flip your hand one way or another. In your palms, you have the icon for you to bring the app. And on the back of your hand, you have the parameters and configuration part. So it was kind of impressive. It would have been impressive a few months back. But now everybody is doing this kind of motion. You can see it in the immersed one, in the Orion one, and in the spectacle one. So I guess as well, it will be a marker for us in 2024, when you will be doing UI in immersive world, you will have to flip your hand to see the menu. So very interesting to see that this trend is all around. But what they showcase as well is for you to pop 3D objects that are generated with AI. It was like very cartoonish and fun design. So it was quite interesting to see that you can generate 3D models on the fly that are compatible with AR. But despite of that, I didn't see any killer apps or very impressive use case. And when I saw the presentation, I immediately thought about the Magic Leap presentation as well. I think they did a Magic Leap one kind of presentation when they are showcasing some fun stuff, but not much of a use case. I don't know what they want us to do with those glasses, especially with the pricing, well, the license or pricing use, when it's basically you have to pay every month to keep the glasses and to use them. I don't think it is a consumer delegated way of selling this. It's more a dev thing. I don't know. You, Fabien, you know Snapchat better than me. What do you know about this? Well, not much more. But I have a lot of things to say. Actually, one thing is... ...to have the menu. Actually, I don't think I mentioned that, but you remember on the Vision Pro, they switch with the Vision OS 2. You can now have the control menu by doing this gesture. And so I've been using it for, I don't know, maybe it's two or three months that Vision 2 is out. And maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I have to do it, you know, one or two times, sorry, two or three times to get the menu to pop out. So I hope that this gesture is working well on the Snapchat Spectacles, is working hopefully better than on the Vision Pro because it's really not usable. Sorry, no, it's usable, but it's a pain to have to, I have to do it again to try to get the menu to pop out. So that was the first thing. And I think one of the usage that they are pushing is multiplayer usage. So you could have friends, some with their phone and some with the Spectacles and all on the same shared experience. And they showcase in the presentation video as well, some kind of, you know, geo-localized experience. So I don't know, I don't know the details about that. I don't know if it's actually something that like stays there and everybody can see it, or it's just, you know, maybe someone that has that lens, they can see it as well. It's probably it. So yeah, that was the second thing that I noticed about this. So really like, well, Snapchat is a social network, so something for social gathering and for friends. And yeah, the video announcement also, just a funny detail, but they are mocking the Vision Pro, the Quest, you know, with this kind of huge thing that other people have. They haven't gone to a cafe. And it says like, no waving hands, like no hand-waving, I forgot what they put. So the message behind that is, yeah, pass through, sorry, pass through, see through is the way forward compared to virtual reality or pass through. So yeah, that was the three things that I noticed. And yeah, same as you, I'm yet to be convinced by the AI feature. Maybe it's cool, you know, to do mid-journey in real time and to send your, sorry, not mid-journey, but like generative AI in real time. I just don't see the usage for that exactly yet. Maybe, you know, in the lens, you can generate objects for your games or whatever, but I don't know. I guess we can maybe conclude our podcast on something, maybe some thoughts is that at some point we were scared that the optical see-through would disappear completely, especially with Magic Leap, like fading away, or lens two that is now stopped officially. So those were the only two representative of the optical see-through. And it was, yeah, it was sad to see this technology like disappear. And just like in a few weeks, we have two new devices using this technology. So the Spectacles, which basically for me, it's like an HoloLens 2 upgrade with better design and form factor and maybe usage than the HoloLens 2. And you have the Orion one. And I'm really curious to know how people are reacting to these. Is there still a future for the new version of the Apple Vision Pro that should be released next year? If I remember correctly, they are light consumer or cheaper version. Because when you are presenting this kind of device, you are giving those particular people that are not interested in using or putting a VR headset on their face, you are giving them the opportunity to dream about this future that is maybe not that far. Even if Mark Zuckerberg said that the Orion is a 10-year project. So we don't know if it's a 10-year from now, or is it already began a few years back? So I don't really know what it means, but if it's a 10-year one, of course, because it will be improved through the years. But I guess they started working on this a few years back because you can't bring this kind of device from nowhere, especially when it's the first AR optical see-through device that they will be releasing. So it's really not where they were working on a daily basis. So yeah, I'm very, very enthusiastic by the fact that the optical see-through is not dead and that they are still trying to do something in this way. But we know that Apple already state that the Apple Vision Pro was not the final form of what they were aiming at. So I guess they have this kind of device as well in their drawers because this is what people are expecting from an AR device to have this kind of very light glasses and the augmentation that can be presented, not a bulky VR or AR headsets. Yeah, maybe actually that's another possibility of why Meta announced Orion so early. It's like they want to be really in advance of Apple. And as you said, I really like what you said, like getting the attention of the masses and say, okay, this is the future. And if Apple release something else that costs, I don't know, 2,000 USD and is still bulky, maybe that's not in the way that people want this kind of devices. Yeah. Okay. So I guess we'll be still talking about this in the next weeks. Do you have anything more to say about those? Okay. So that's it for today. We'll be back in two weeks with Seb hopefully. And see you guys for another episode of Lost in Immersion. See you Fabien. Thanks. See you.
