The Meta Quest 3 and Quest 3S have seemingly been runaway critical and commercial successes, especially compared to the Meta Quest which appears to have sold extremely poorly based on it being heavily discounted after less than half a year on sale and discontinued without a successor. So it was easy to believe rumors that the Meta Quest Pro 2 had been canceled – twice in fact. Though it might have risen from the dead a third time.
In July 2023 we reported that the Meta Quest Pro 2 had been canceled, and then in Februray 2024 we let you know about buzz surrounding a Meta and LG partnership that could see them release a high-end headset with OLED displays to rival the Apple Vision Pro. A month later things took a turn for the worse again when it seemed the LG partnership was off, followed by reports in August that the OLED Quest pro 2 Project – codenamed La Jolla – had kicked the bucket.
However there were rumors a third Quest Pro 2 prototype had materialized – Puffin – with a radical new design, and while it’s unclear if Puffin is still set to be Meta’s Quest Pro successor, people in the know have said that it is still working on some kind of Pro headset.
If that’s been confusing to follow we don’t blame you, so we’ve gathered the latest rumors, leaks, and some of our own informed speculation here to help you understand everything there is to know about the Meta Quest Pro 2.
Meta Quest Pro 2: Price
Because the Meta Quest Pro 2 hasn’t been announced we don’t know exactly how much it’ll cost, but we expect it’ll be at least as pricey as the original which launched at $1,499.99 / £1,499.99 / AU$2,449.99.
The Meta Quest Pro was permanently discounted to $999.99 / £999.99 / AU$1729.99 five months after it launched, but we expect this was Meta attempting to give the Quest Pro a much-needed sales boost rather than an indication of the headset’s actual cost. So it’s unlikely a successor would start as low as this.
What’s more, given the talk that this headset may attempt to rival the Apple Vision Pro with high-end specs and components – perhaps OLED displays, with or without an LG partnership – there’s a chance the Pro 2 might even cost more than its predecessor.
Our money is on it still landing at around $1,499.99 / £1,499.99 / AU$2,449.99, based on Apple Vision pro’s failure to convince people to pay higher amounts for XR hardware, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Meta Quest Pro 2: Release date
Meta hasn’t announced the Quest Pro 2 yet – or even teased it. Given its usual release schedule this means the earliest we’re likely to see a Pro model is October 2026; that’s because it would tease the device at this year’s Meta Connect in September/October 2025, and then launch it the following year’s event as it did with the original Quest Pro and Quest 3.
Supporting a 2026 release date is that Meta is seemingly focused on smart glasses in 2025. Zuckerberg teased third-gen smart glasses are coming this year at the Q4 2024 Meta investor call, and leaks suggest Meta could also have Oakley smart glasses up its sleeve for 2025. As such it may want to kick the Quest Pro 2 to 2026 to give its smart glasses room to breathe.
Alternatively, Meta may want to push a high-end model out ASAP so as to not let the Apple Vision Pro and others like the Samsung Project Moohan headset corner the high-end VR market. If this is the case it could forgo its usual tease then release strategy and just release the headset later this year.
This speculation all assumes a Meta Quest Pro 2 is even on the way – though Meta has strongly suggested that another Pro model would come in the future, and leaks support this; we’ll just have to wait and see what’s up its sleeve.
Meta Quest Pro 2: Specs
Leaks haven’t told us much about the Meta Quest Pro 2’s potential specs. The LG partnership teases OLED displays, and Meta previous Qualcomm team ups suggest it’ll use them once again for the chipset – likely the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2, or even the XR2+ Gen 3 if the Quest Pro 2 is still far enough from launch.
Beyond this, we predict the device would have specs at least as good as its predecessor. By that we mean we expect the base Quest Pro 2 would come with 12GB of RAM, 256GB of storage and a two-hour minimum battery life.
The only thing we have heard is the potential design of the headset; if Puffin is the prototype Meta will develop into the Meta Quest Pro 2 then we could be in for a lightweight device – Puffin is said to be just 110g, significantly less then the Meta Quest Pro’s 722g weight.
Puffin is also meant to look like opaque glasses – though it’ll rely solely on VR and MR instead of AR. This makes some sense given Meta’s previous explanations of what the Pro line should be – a look at the future of XR.
VR headsets likely aren’t going anywhere but the clear industry trend is that glasses are the next stage of evolution for this field – even if, at first, they’ll be less capable to account for weight and size restrictions. Puffin would be in-keeping with the Quest Pro’s promise to show us where accessible XR tech could be in a few years by giving us a glimpse via a prosumer glasses-like product that emphasizes comfort and performance at a high cost.
But we’ll have to wait and see what Meta has up its sleeve.
Meta Quest Pro 2: What we want to see
We’ve already highlighted in depth what we want to see from the Meta Quest Pro 2 – namely it should ditch eye-tracking and replace it with four different features. But we’ll recap some of those points here, and make a few new ones of things we want to see from the Quest Pro 2.
Vastly better mixed-reality passthrough, more entertainment apps and, 4K OLED displays would go a long way to making the Meta Quest Pro 2 feel a lot more like a Vision Pro competitor – so we hope to see them on the Quest Pro 2.
Eye-tracking could also help, but Meta really needs to prove it’s worthwhile. So far every instance of the tech feels like an expensive tech demo for a feature that’s neat, but not all that useful.
Ignoring specs and design for a second, our most important hope is that the Quest Pro 2 isn’t as prohibitively expensive as the Apple Vision Pro. While the Vision Pro is great, $3,500 is too much even for a high-end VR headset when you consider the realities of how and how often the device will be used. Ideally the Quest Pro 2 would be at most $2,000 / £2,000 / AU$3,000, though until we know more about its specs we won’t know how realistic our request is.
Lastly we hope the device is light, perhaps with a removable battery pack like the one seen in the HTC Vive XR Elite. This would allow someone who wants to work at their desk or sit back and watch a film in VR wear a much lighter device for the extended period of time (provided their near a power source). Alternatively they can plug the battery in and enjoy a typical standalone VR experience – to us this would be a win-win.
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