Meta Connect 2025 starts on Wednesday. Here’s what we expect to see announced, and what we don’t.
The company’s annual conference, where it typically announces new hardware and major software and content updates, takes place on September 17 and 18 this year.
Meta’s description of the main keynote simply states that Mark Zuckerberg will “share the latest on AI glasses and lay out Meta’s vision for artificial intelligence and the metaverse”. And last month, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth teased “big wearables announcements”, as well as AI and “metaverse software”.
David Heaney
Beyond this vagueness, Meta has kept tight-lipped about what to expect. But a series of reports from reliable sources, and our understanding of Meta’s strategy, mean we can make some reasonable predictions as to what to expect.
Keep in mind that we may be wrong, however, and the only way to really find out what Meta will announce is to watch the Connect keynote.
Smart Glasses
Monocular HUD Glasses
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, The Verge, The Information, The Financial Times, and CNBC have all reported that Meta intends to release smart glasses with a small heads-up display (HUD) in the right eye, codenamed Hypernova, controlled by finger gestures from its long-in-development sEMG neural wristband, reportedly set to be included in the box.
To be clear, this will not be AR. The reports suggest that the small HUD will be used to show the time, weather, and notifications, to frame and preview photos, for turn-by-turn navigation, to show captions and translations of real-world speech, and to optionally display Meta AI responses as text instead of audio.
According to The Information, the addition of the HUD brings Hypernova to around 70 grams, compared to the 50 grams of Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
In July, renders of Hypernova and its wristband were discovered in early firmware on a public Meta server, and an engraving visible in one of the renders seemingly revealed the product’s name: Meta Celeste.
While Mark Gurman said back in April that Meta was planning to sell the product for over $1000, last month he reported that the company has decided to sell it from $800.
David Heaney
We expect Meta’s HUD glasses to be the primary focus of Connect 2025.
Oakley Meta Sphaera Glasses
Meta and EssilorLuxottica recently launched the Oakley Meta HSTN glasses, and they’re essentially just a slightly higher-end version of Ray-Ban Meta, with higher resolution video recording and longer battery life.
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, though, this won’t be the only Oakley Meta collab this year. Gurman reports that the two companies are also working on glasses based on Oakley’s Sphaera design, with the camera in the center.
A centered camera would be more ideal for first-person footage, and the product will reportedly be marketed towards “cyclists and other athletes”.
Next-Gen Ray-Ban Meta Glasses?
Meta’s HUD glasses will be a much higher priced product than the mainstream Ray-Ban Meta glasses, and not a replacement for them.
But could we see an upgrade for Ray-Ban Meta too? Reports disagree.
David Heaney
Back in May, The Information reported that the codenames of the next generation Ray-Ban Meta glasses are Aperol and Bellini, and that they were planned for 2026. Upgrades would include the ability to recognize faces and run continuous AI sessions for “hours”, the outlet said.
However, in July a group on Chinese social media calling itself XR Research Institute posted apparent renders of the next-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses, showing distinct designs for optical glasses and sunglasses. And the group claimed that the new models should launch this year.
David Heaney
Given how recently Meta and EssilorLuxottica launched the Oakley Meta HSTN glasses, with only minor upgrades over Ray-Ban Meta at a $100 higher price, it seems unlikely that Meta will imminently drop a true next generation. But given just how popular the glasses are, it’s within the realm of possibility that Meta and EssilorLuxottica have accelerated their plans.
A Glasses SDK (Of Some Kind)
Regardless of which glasses Meta does or doesn’t launch at Connect 2025, it seems clear that some kind of SDK for developers is inbound.
David Heaney
On the schedule, 3 of the developer sessions set to take place on day 2 include “new developer toolkit from Meta to be announced September 18” in their titles.
All three sessions are hosted by Meta employees whose LinkedIn profiles include phrases like “I help companies bring their apps to AI-powered smart glasses like Ray-Ban Meta”, and work on “software integrations with external parties for Ray-Ban Meta and Oakley Meta glasses”.
Further, last month CNBC reported that Meta has reached out to third-party developers to build “experimental apps” for the HUD glasses.
David Heaney
What’s entirely unclear is exactly what form a Meta smart glasses SDK might take.
Given the extremely limited compute of the glasses themselves, one possibility is that the SDK will be server-side, letting developers build integrations for Meta AI, rather than the glasses themselves, akin to Alexa Skills.
Headsets & Horizon OS
No New Quest Headset
For the first time since Connect 2021, where Facebook renamed itself to Meta and presented its vision of the metaverse, we do not expect the company to launch a new Quest headset.
Meta and LG once planned to ship a Quest Pro spiritual successor this year, but that was at least delayed to 2027 last year, and canceled earlier this year as LG officially ceased its XR product commercialization efforts (the company is still continuing background R&D).
David Heaney
Our sources suggest that Meta’s next headset will be an ultralight open-periphery device with a tethered compute puck, running Horizon OS, which the company hopes to ship in 2026.
The Asus ROG Headset?
While we’re highly confident in saying that Meta itself won’t be launching a new headset this year, that doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t see a new headset running Quest’s system software and store.
Last year, when branding the Quest operating system as Horizon OS, Meta announced that select third-party hardware companies would be able to use it in their headsets too, starting with Asus and Lenovo.
David Heaney
The Asus headset was described as a “performance gaming headset” under the company’s Republic of Gamers (ROG) brand, while Lenovo is apparently working on a line of headsets for “productivity, learning, and entertainment”.
Back in January, VR enthusiast Luna received a tip with apparent details of the Asus ROG headset. According to that tip, the headset is codenamed Tarius, will have face and eye tracking, and will use either QD-LCD panels with local dimming or micro-OLED displays.
David Heaney
We haven’t seen any leak or report that indicates we’ll see the Asus ROG Horizon OS headset launch this year. And it may be launched at an Asus event, rather than a Meta event. But it’s well within the realm of possibility that we see something related to it at Meta Connect 2025.
Horizon OS Screen Sharing
Since last year – and some would argue in response to Apple Vision Pro – Meta overhauled how Horizon OS handles 2D windows, such as the web browser and traditional Android apps. But Meta doesn’t yet have a system-wide capability for sharing these windows with others.
David Heaney
The latest PTC (Public Test Channel) build of the operating system adds the ability to persistently pin windows in the overhauled VR home space. And Luna’s datamining of Horizon OS suggests that it will soon let you ‘Share’ these windows with others visiting your home.
David Heaney
The ability to share 2D windows with other people is a fundamental feature of Apple’s visionOS for Vision Pro, called SharePlay, and we expect Meta to at least tease, if not launch, some kind of equivalent at Connect 2025.
A New Blockbuster VR Game?
Something I’ve seen a lot of people wonder about Connect 2025 is whether or not we’ll see Meta announce a new first-party blockbuster VR game.
To us, it seems unlikely. In recent years Meta has moved to announcing its blockbuster titles during the summer, originally at its own Meta Quest Gaming Showcase events and most recently at wider gaming events like gamescom for Batman: Arkham Shadow last year and Summer Game Fest for Deadpool VR this year.
Henry Stockdale
Deadpool VR is set to launch on November 18, exclusively for Quest 3 and Quest 3S, and we expect this to be Meta’s only blockbuster VR game releasing this year. It’s also possible that Meta will bundle Deadpool VR with new purchases of Quest 3S and/or Quest 3, as it did with Batman: Arkham Shadow.
That’s not to say Meta isn’t working on a new blockbuster VR title. The voice actor for Commissioner Gordon in Arkham Shadow confirmed last month that a sequel was about to enter development.
Henry Stockdale
It’s possible that Meta will announce the Arkham Shadow sequel at Connect 2025. But given the long development cycles of games like this, the company may want to wait for a future Connect for that.
Valve Steam Frame?
Another thing that could happen during Meta Connect is the announcement of Valve’s new headset.
To be clear, we don’t mean at Meta Connect itself, but we do mean during. Back in 2019, Valve set the embargo for first impressions of Index, and opened preorders, during F8 2019, the Facebook conference where Mark Zuckerberg opened preorders for Rift S and Oculus Quest.
While Valve’s relationship with Meta has clearly improved in the six years since, we definitely wouldn’t rule out Valve trying to steal Meta’s thunder again.
Ian Hamilton
Over the past four years Valve has repeatedly confirmed that it’s working on a new headset, strongly hinting that it will have a focus on wireless streaming from your PC. In this time, many references to a Valve headset called “Deckard” have been found in the code of SteamVR, and “Roy” controller models were discovered late last year.
Last week Valve applied for a trademark on the term ‘Steam Frame’, and both SteamVR datamining and leakers suggest this could be the product name for Deckard.
David Heaney
Another possibility is that Valve will launch the SteamVR Link Dongle that has been discovered in SteamVR code, which could improve the reliability of wireless PC VR for all standalone headsets.
Meta Connect 2025 Keynote
The main Meta Connect 2025 keynote will be streamed at 5pm PT on Wednesday, and the developer keynote at 10am PT on Thursday.
UploadVR will be on-site at Meta’s HQ, and we’ll endeavor to bring you full coverage of all the biggest announcements.
