VR Is in a Really Bad Place Right Now and Smart Glasses Are to Blame

Gizmodo

19 hours ago

Remember VR? It's that thing where you put on a headset and… You remember VR, right? If you don't remember VR, you couldn't be blamed, because things have taken a turn since way back in 2023, and right now, VR seems to be on the back burner, cold, with the heat turned off, while its sister tech, XR/AR is front and center, getting all of chef's Michelin-starred attention.
That's not just a feeling, either; there are numbers to bear that trend out. Year over year, Meta said last week that Meta Reality Labs sales were down from $440 million in Q1 of 2024 to $412 million in Q1 of 2025. That drop, by Meta's own admission, is due in large part to tanking Quest sales. What makes that trend interesting isn't just the precipitous drop in Quest sales; it's the fact that at the same time, sales of its increasingly popular Ray-Ban smart glasses seem to be through the roof. According to Meta CFO Susan Li, Reality Labs' revenue loss was 'due to lower Meta Quest sales, which were partially offset by increased sales of Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses.' That increase in revenue, by the way, is apparently threefold year-over-year.
If I'm reading into Li's breakdown, Quest sales are tanking, and smart glasses are saving the day. Or, I guess that's one way to look at it. Another way to see that trend is that VR is skidding out, and smart glasses (and the potential for XR/AR inside them) are picking up the pieces. That may sound sensational, but it also makes perfect sense in other ways.
Don't get me wrong, I actually like VR/XR headsets; I think the Quest 3S is the perfect headset for the moment because it's light, affordable, and still offers a full-featured XR experience that will satisfy established XR/VR fans and impress beginners. That being said, they're still a burden. Strapping a headset to your face is inherently invasive and not exactly what most would call a pleasant time. Even the Quest 3, which is lightweight and generally comfortable compared to the competition, wears on your eyes, your face, and your poor, sweaty skin after a while.
As much as I love the Quest for what it could be, it's hard to reconcile that with what it is right now. Smart glasses, on the other hand, don't share those problems. Sure, Meta's Ray-Ban glasses don't do even half of what we want them to at this point in time—they don't even have a display in them yet—but they're a light touch. If you want a taste of smart features like Bluetooth audio, a voice assistant, and some (very hit-and-miss) AI, then you can snag a pair, slap them on your face, and wear them for hours without feeling like you're wearing anything other than a regular pair of glasses.
The lesson here is that it's better to do a little of what you would expect (enough to qualify as a good start) than try to do everything at the cost of a clunky form factor, and that's shining through when it comes to smart glasses versus VR headsets. Not only that, but smart glasses, though still very much a work in progress, are also potentially a lot more useful in your day-to-day. Because of their light form factor, you can actually bring them into the real world and use them for real stuff like taking pictures or calling your mom. Which is a reminder: you should call your mom, smart glasses or not.
No matter where your priorities or allegiances lie, the tides, as they often do in emerging tech, seem to be turning. On top of that, all of the latest rhetoric around smart glasses and XR/AR from Apple's Tim Cook and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg should give you some indication of which way those waters are flowing. If you're a fan of smart glasses, you've got nothing to worry about, but if you were excited to realize our full VR future, you may have to wait a while longer.