The XR Week Peek (2025.06.22): Meta launches glasses with Oakley, Meta Quest 3S XBOX leaked, and more!

These are my last hours in the US! I’m starting to write this newsletter that literally in an hour, I’m going to the airport to return back to Europe. But I’m not returning to Italy, but I’m going to Berlin (Germany) to be a mentor at the XRCC hackathon. If you’re headed there, see you there! 
 
 This leg of my trip to the Silicon Valley has been pretty interesting. I have not had many business-oriented meetings, but I had many meaningful conversations with interesting people, which made me understand many things I will have to think about in the next days. It’s always good to speak with smart people and to listen to their pieces of advice.
 
 But enough talking about me, let’s see what cool XR things happened in the past week.

Top news of the week

Meta and Oakley launch their smartglasses

As teased last week, Meta and Oakley have launched their smartglasses, which are an evolution of Ray-Ban Meta.
 
 The device has the name “Oakley Meta HSTN” (pronounced HOW-stuhn), which in my humble opinion is a ridiculous name: if this is the final name that Meta chose, I can’t imagine how bad the alternatives were. Anyway, the glasses were teased to be dedicated to athletes and high performers, and they somewhat are, but just for a marketing positioning decision and not because of some technical features they have.
 
 Because the truth is, these glasses are basically just a v1.2 of the Ray-Ban Meta. They carry with them some linear technical improvement, but no big change from the previous model. Even the camera, which according to the leaks should have been in the center, is actually still on the side of the glasses (It seems a new model with the central camera is coming later this year, though, according to Mark Gurman).
 
 So what are the improvements brought by these glasses? First of all, they can shoot 3K videos. The battery got double the duration, which is a great thing: Oakley Meta HSTN is said to allow for up to eight hours of “typical use” and up to 19 hours on standby mode. Even the carrying case has more battery capacity: it may give 48 hours of extended battery life to the glasses. The device also features five microphones, as well as off-ear speakers for taking calls and listening to music while on the go. The chipset is the Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1, like it was with the previous model.
 
 Oakley Meta glasses are said to be water-resistant up to an IPX4 rating, which means they are resistant to rain and water splashes, but nothing more. A bit disappointing in my opinion for glasses that are marketed towards athletes.
 
 The Oakley Meta glasses will be available at first in Europe and North America, to then be distributed also to Mexico, India, and the United Arab Emirates later this year. Pre-orders are slated to start on July 11th for its special debut version, priced at $499. Later on, new models will be made available, with the price starting at $399.
 
 As I’ve said, I’m happy to see some improvements, but I was expecting something more on the technical side, or at least something different from what we have already seen with the Ray-Ban Meta. I guess I was not the only one: while the news spread pretty fast, I’ve seen literally zero hype for this launch.
 
 Anyway, Meta is not stopping here: a new rumor talks about potential smartglasses that Meta is doing for Prada. Usually the Prada glasses have very high frames, which would allow for more electronics to be installed on the glasses. Let’s wait and see…

More info (Meta launches Oakley Meta HSTN — Road To VR)
More info (Meta launches Oakley Meta HSTN — Upload VR)
More info (Meta launches Oakley Meta HSTN — Meta blog)
More info (Zuck wearing the new glasses)
More info (Meta potentially working with Prada on some new glasses)

Other relevant news

Meta Quest 3S Xbox Edition may come this week

According to some leaks, Meta is going to launch on Tuesday, 24th of June, its Meta Quest 3S XBOX Edition that was teased a few months ago.
 
 Before some of you may think we are talking about a VR headset for XBOX, let me clarify what it is: it is basically just a black Quest 3S. Meta worked with Microsoft to create a bundle to facilitate the use of the Quest 3S to play XBOX Cloud games, that’s it.
 
 The box contains a Quest 3S that is black with some green finish and has installed the Elite strap; an XBOX wireless Gamepad; and also 3 months of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. The price for this (lame) bundle is $399, which is more than the price of the original Quest 3S, but less than if you bought all the components separately.
 
 I’m sorry if I’m not excited by the news, but I can’t be excited by a Quest with a different color that is shipped with the controller of the Rift CV1. I don’t even think that XBOX players will rush to buy this headset. The only thing that will be interesting for me to see is the sales numbers of this headset. While we all love VR native games, not everyone wants to get physically tired when playing games. And we have seen devices like the XREAL One Pro or the Viture glasses having great sales by just offering a big virtual screen. It will be interesting to see if console players would find it interesting to have a VR headset that is bundled so that it just acts as a big virtual screen, too. I personally don’t think so, but I would be happy to be proven wrong.

More info (Quest 3S for XBOX leaked)
More info (Quest 3S for XBOX may launch on June, 24)

Project Moohan may launch on October 13

NewsPim, a Korean outlet, has a new rumor about Project Moohan, the headset that is jointly made by Google and Samsung (with the help of Qualcomm).
 
 According to this magazine, the pre-orders of Project Moohan will open at a Samsung Unpacked event in South Korea on September 29. Then the headset will actually launch on October 13, with shipments starting only in South Korea. A global rollout in the rest of the world should happen slightly after.
 
 I suggest you take this rumor with a pinch of salt, because these days we are seeing too many rumors about this headset, all saying different things. The common denominator of these rumors is that the headset is launching in the next few months and that it has a preliminary phase where it is available only in South Korea. Usually, when rumors have something in common, that thing is true, so I think that this information has a higher probability of being correct.

More info

IDC is positive about XR again

In its latest report, IDC has returned to express a positive opinion about the XR market. The market analysis firm has stated that “the global AR/VR headset market posted a strong rebound in the latest quarter, growing 18.1% year-over-year”. Considering the past negative reports about XR, this is a positive sign for all of us.
 
 The firm still expects a 12% decline in total shipments for the whole of 2025, but then sees “a strong rebound in 2026” with 87% growth. Headsets should ultimately surpass the pandemic-era peak of 11.2 million units. In general, from 2025 to 2029, the market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 38.6%. These are all great indicators: we have always seen that XR went down after COVID, so seeing the number of XR devices surpassing the peak of the COVID era next year is for sure amazing news.
 
 There is only one problem with this report: it is a mix of literally all the XR devices. The report puts together a VR/MR headset like the Meta Quest; an MR headset like the Vision Pro; and virtual display glasses like the ones offered by XREAL and Viture. This is a bit confusing, in my opinion: saying that the XREAL One this year is selling more than the Vision Pro last year is a bit like comparing oranges with apples (pun intended). It’s good to see that globally XR devices are selling better, but I still think we should divide them by category if we want to have a clear picture of what is happening. And what I see here is that the headsets are not going great, but AI smartglasses and virtual-display glasses are instead having some success. This represents an interesting shift in the market.

More info

News worth a mention

Meta teases AI generation tools for whole worlds

A few weeks ago, I reported to you the news of Meta adding a lot of interesting AI tools to the Desktop editor for Horizon Worlds. Thanks to them, Horizon Worlds creators are able to generate 3D assets, music, and other multimedia just with a single prompt. Now, Meta is teasing AI creation tools able to generate a whole world with a single prompt.
 
 On one side, this is amazing, and democratizes the creation of 3D worlds. On the other side, if someone defines him/herself as a “creator”, he/she is supposed to actually create something, to express him/herself. But if the act of creation is just writing a single text prompt… can we still consider it a personal creation? I think there is a line between helping people in creating something and doing all the work for them, removing any creativity from it. Call me old school, but I think that these tools are crossing that line.

More info

Move AI’s latest update is impressive

I guess you all know Move AI, the markerless motion tracking tool that allows you to track the movements of multiple people in a space by just using standard cameras. I’ve stumbled upon a LinkedIn post that shows its latest update, and it’s very impressive. The company has focused a lot on finger tracking, and so now the algorithm not only tracks your body very well, but also detects all the single movements of your fingers. Pretty impressive, considering that it does not require wearing any tracking gloves.

More info

DAZN offers a 3D tabletop view of the FIFA Club World Cup

You may have heard that these days, the FIFA Club World Cup is happening. It is a soccer tournament between clubs, and it has moderate importance. Streaming company DAZN has released an app on Quest that allows US people to see the football matches happening live in 3D as a diorama in front of the user. This is pretty cool for football fans, especially the ones who love to have details on tactics and statistics. The irony is that this is US-only, while it is Europe, the place where soccer is mostly followed.

More info

RIP Onward

Meta has announced the shutdown of Downpour Interactive, the team behind the popular mil sim shooter Onward. All the people in the team have been moved to Camouflaj, another Meta-owned studio. The game will still be available, but it won’t receive any new updates. Probably this is the beginning of the end for the game: unless it receives an unexpected new influx of users that may re-ignite Meta’s interest, without updates, slowly people will lose interest in it, and eventually it will close. This is a huge pity: when Meta bought Onward, it seemed it could pour into it the money that could take it to the next level, but instead, the game did not perform as hoped, and basically, Meta killed it. I bet that without Meta’s acquisition, it would still be strong as an indie game… but we all know that a big corporation has different goals than a small indie team.

More info

Some news about content

• The super-popular game Beat Saber will no longer receive updates on PSVR and PSVR 2 starting today, with multiplayer slated to go offline early next year
• Eldramoor: Haven in the Mist is slated to launch a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign next week. They are aiming at a $25,000 base goal, which in my opinion is too little to develop any XR experience
• Sony developed itself and released for PS5 and PSVR2 Climate Station, a free interactive story focused on climate change
• Vast’s VR experience puts you inside Haven-1, set to be the first-ever private sector space station. It is available for free on the most popular VR platforms
• Neolithic Dawn offers physics-based crafting in an open world VR survival game, arriving on June 27 in early access on Quest.

More info (Beat Saber)
More info (Eldramoor)
More info (Climate Station)
More info (VAST)
More info (Neolithic Dawn)

Some reviews about content

• Jigsaw Night is a very well-crafted indie title that lets you play Jigsaw in mixed reality with the people you love. It supports both local and remote multiplayer
• Alliance Peacefighter is a spaceship fighting game inspired by 90s genre classics Wing Commander and X-Wing. The dogfighting action is pretty nice, but there are still some things to improve, like the quality of sound
• The Smurfs: Flower Defense is a polished tower defense game. It also offers you some first-person action to help the Smurfs. It is a pretty adorable game that feels good in VR.

More info (Jigsaw Night)
More info (Alliance Peacefighter)
More info (The Smurfs Flower Defense)

Other news

You can have a first look at the Vision Pro working with PSVR 2 controllers

Learn more

TDK has acquired smartglasses manufacturer Softeye

Learn more

Meta has upgraded its Spatial SDK which lets native app developers create immersive reality applications

Learn more

I just discovered that escorts in VRChat are a thing

Learn more

A Redditor made a nice list of 50 free VR experiences on Quest

Learn more

News from partners (and friends)

The 8th Wall adds AI tools and native app export

The 8th Wall just released a bunch of very interesting tools, while at the same time keeping the licenses quite affordable. These are the most relevant pieces of news I want to tell you about:

• 8th Wall Studio has officially moved out of beta
• In the Studio, you can now have prefab objects, like in Unity
• You can now directly generate 3D assets with AI from within the Studio. With the 8th Wall Asset Lab you can now generate images, 3D models, as well as rigged and animated character models using just a single text prompt. All of this is very conveniently integrated in the 8th Wall Studio
• Native app export is officially part of the platform. The 8th Wall is known for its WebAR tools, but people that also want to publish the experiences they build on the store now they can, because the Studio can now export native applications. For instance, you can now export an APK to publish on the Meta Quest store.

Because of these cool updates, The 8th Wall has also won an Auggie Award. Compliments to the whole team!
Learn more (All the new features of The 8th Wall Studio)
Learn more (The 8th Wall won an Auggie award)

Sponsored Area

No sponsors today, I just send you all a big hug!

Some XR fun

This is how you gamify… OH NO
Funny link

VR transforms you and your body
Funny link

Do you know de wei?
Funny link

Donate for good

Like last week, also this week in this final paragraph I won’t ask you to donate to my blog, but to the poor people who are facing the consequences of the war. Please donate to the Red Cross to handle the current humanitarian situation in Ukraine. I will leave you the link to do that below.
 
 Let me take a moment before to thank anyway all my Patreon donors for the support they give to me:

• Alex Gonzalez VR
• DeoVR
• GenVR
• Eduardo Siman
• Jonn Fredericks
• Jean-Marc Duyckaerts
• Reynaldo T Zabala
• Richard Penny
• Terry xR. Schussler
• Ilias Kapouranis
• Paolo Leoncini
• Immersive.international
• Nikk Mitchell and the great FXG team
• Jake Rubin
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• Raghu Bathina
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• Cognitive3D
• Wisear (Yacine Achiakh)
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• Keith Bradner
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• Marco “BeyondTheCastle” Arena
• Eloi Gerard
• Adam Boyd
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• Boule Petanque
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• Vooiage Technologies
• Caroline
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• Wil Stevens
• Francesco Salizzoni
• Alan Smithson
• Steve R
• Brentwahn
• Michael Gaebler
• Tiago Silva
• Matt Cool
• Mark G
• Simplex
• Gregory F Gorsuch
• Paul Shay
• Matias Nassi

And now here you are the link to donate:

Support The Red Cross in Ukraine

(Header image by Meta)

The post The XR Week Peek (2025.06.22): Meta launches glasses with Oakley, Meta Quest 3S XBOX leaked, and more! appeared first on The Ghost Howls.