What you need to know
- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will meet with LG CEO Cho Joo-wan on Wednesday to plan an "AI-XR alliance," according to the Korea Economic Daily.
- Allegedly, LG will develop the hardware and lend its webOS TV interface to the Meta Quest Pro 2, due out in Q1 2025.
- Meta may bring its AI services to LG appliances and IT services.
- A previous rumor suggested the Quest Pro 2 would cost $2,000.
On Wednesday, the CEOs of Meta and LG will meet in South Korea to discuss an "AI-XR alliance," according to industry sources. Among the items on the agenda, Meta will enlist LG's help in creating the Meta Quest Pro 2, its second attempt at a premium productivity XR headset.
The Korea Economic Daily (via UploadVR) states that the "two companies plan to release the highest-performance XR headset that surpasses Apple's 'Vision Pro' in the first quarter of next year," as per Google Translate.
While early 2025 sounds like a fast turnaround on paper, we first heard of a Meta-LG Quest Pro 2 back in September 2023, with a target $2,000 price point — $1,500 less than the Vision Pro, but $1,000 more than the Meta Quest Pro, which dropped $500 in price a few months after launch due to poor sales.
Meta allegedly canceled a different Pro 2 prototype due out this year, codenamed Funston, before pivoting to this LG-made prototype.
This meeting will cement the plans put in place months ago, while laying out how to hit that early 2025 release date, "what services to include, and how to devise a sales strategy," according to the KED.
Although LG will handle the hardware and Meta the software, the report claims that the Quest Pro 2 will switch to a new operating system based on LG's WebOS, paired with Meta's own on-device AI.
Meta will also bring its AI technology to LG's home appliances (like TVs), most likely as a virtual assistant chatbot through remote controls. We assume that Meta's "human-level AI" will need more time before it comes to any commercial product.
How a Meta-LG alliance would benefit the Quest Pro 2
Meta has the market cornered for gaming VR, but when it comes to a productivity XR headset, it has to compete with the Apple Vision Pro, the rumored Samsung XR headset, Sony's XR headset, and even a Huawei XR headset. In this environment, it makes sense for Meta to partner with a major manufacturer who has experience on both the hardware and software sides, where Meta's rivals have an advantage.
Its biggest rival, the Apple Vision Pro, has the benefit of the App Store, giving it access to thousands of apps while Meta struggled to get many productivity apps to make XR-ready software for the Quest Pro. It also has a reputation as a great device for streaming content in a virtual theater, such as Disney+.
Even though the Quest 3 has a surprisingly good collection of media apps, they're strictly VR apps that lack mixed-reality passthrough or any futuristic controls like the Vision Pro offers. In theory, though, a partnership with LG could help Meta make inroads with its regular streaming app partners.
It's also the case that the Meta Quest UI is considered a weak point of its headsets. LG's WebOS isn't an especially advanced operating system, but considering XR headsets typically use massive, rectangular floating displays, we can certainly see how a TV-based OS would translate well to mixed reality.
Plus, LG's experience manufacturing displays will help Meta close the gap with the Apple Vision Pro, which offers a ridiculous 11.5 million pixels per eye for visual realism. A productivity headset, which workers must theoretically wear all day, needs a clear visual experience to help users avoid eye strain and headaches.
Will this be enough for Meta to justify charging people $2,000 (allegedly) for the Quest Pro 2? It'll depend on the quality of the experience and if Meta can poach enough of Apple's spatial partners to bring their productivity software to other headsets. In that case, Meta can be the affordable alternative to the Vision Pro.
