From the outside, it seems like virtual and mixed reality are having a moment. Three new headsets have been launched or announced in the past month: Apple’s M5 Vision Pro, the Samsung Galaxy XR, and, this week, Valve announced the Steam Frame. Looking at the marketing, you can assume that Big Tech thinks this technology finally has some mass market appeal. But, in the nearly 60 years since the first VR headset, one thing remains true: It’s not the next iPhone.
“Let’s put it this way,” says analyst Tuong Huy Nguyen, director of Gartner’s emerging technologies and trends team. “Everyone who wants a VR headset already has one.”
The question is not whether people are buying these headsets or not. They are – just not in numbers that indicate the technology is ready for primetime. According to IDC, Apple will ship about 400,000 Vision Pro headsets in 2024. This makes sense considering the $3,500 price tag. But Meta’s headsets are relatively affordable at $300 to $500 and make popular Christmas gifts. Meta shipped approximately 5.6 million headsets in 2024. In comparison, 1.2 Arab The smartphones were shipped during the same time frame.
And despite what appears to be hype around the Vision Pro and Galaxy XR, Counterpoint Research senior analyst Flora Tang said premium headsets, or those priced more than $1,000, will represent only 5 to 6 percent of total VR shipments in 2025. This aligns with numbers from IDC, which estimates that these premium headsets will account for about 6.2 percent of the total market in 2024.
But for such a small market, Big Tech is increasingly betting that this is the future. Meta’s Reality Labs, the division behind its Quest headset and Ray-Ban smart glasses, reported an operating loss of $4.4 billion on sales of $470 million during its third quarter.
so the real question is Who Are you buying this headset? And why are they so attractive to the biggest names in tech?
A step towards smart glasses
Long story short: headsets are a bit of a red herring. These heavy devices are not really the end goal. Instead, these are sleek, discreet smart glasses that let you mix the real world with the digital.
Just look at the meta. It spent billions of dollars in headsets over several years, before switching to audio-only smart glasses with cameras in 2021. Then, last month, it launched the Meta Ray-Ban Display, its first glasses with a heads-up display. This is the same roadmap that Google, Samsung and Apple are currently on. But as companies work on refining sleek, wearable glasses, they to pass Investing together in a headset to create software.
“Ultimately, we all know we want to get to glasses, but it’s just going to take us a while to get there,” says IDC’s Ubrani, referring to the dream of Tony Stark-like smart glasses with all the computing capabilities of an XR headset.
“The headset is a form factor that’s here for now, and in the future, maybe gamers will use it. It’s here for a flash in the pan so we can get to what we really want.”
So who’s buying the headsets?
While the average person wants End Products, stepping stones are absolutely within the scope of enterprises.
“The biggest share of Apple Vision Pro headsets really went to developers and businesses. They’re the ones trying to create new experiences,” says Jitesh Ubarani, IDC’s research manager for mobile worldwide device trackers. “What we saw for the Vision Pro, and I strongly suspect we’ll see the same for the Galaxy XR, is that its price is essentially out of the hands of consumers. And consumers who to do If you want the XR experience they have much cheaper options available.”
If you’re paying with your own dollars, a gadget needs to perform as many functions as possible. With a corporate budget, there is more flexibility to have state-of-the-art tools that maybe do one or two things well.
“In the short and medium term, what we need and will see adopted are purpose-built tools,” says Nguyen, the Gartner analyst. “Before today’s smartphones, it was PDAs and BlackBerrys. If you’re a business person who needs your email or something like that, it’s very purposefully built. he is Where are we today?”
The numbers don’t lie either. IDC says Apple will have shipped only 400,000 Vision Pros in 2024, but it has a 30 percent share of the enterprise market, second only to Meta with 47 percent.
Similarly, the overwhelming majority of Vision Pro owners The Verge Spoke to independent XR developers or enterprise users. Most had paid for the equipment out of their own pockets.
All had a long-standing interest in the field, many of whom either had or already owned a Quest headset. Many people have wanted to experiment with or are interested in Samsung’s Galaxy XR. (Surprisingly, price was the biggest barrier there.) Most enjoyed immersive content, passthrough capabilities, and a handful were interested in gaming. But what’s the most common use case for every analyst and headset owner I spoke to?
Tasks that require a larger screen become easier to create.
“I’m a programmer, so I like a big workspace. If I have to code on a small screen, with many windows open – it feels too cramped. The goal for me was always to change screens and my laptop is one of them. I would be very happy if in the future I have no TV, no computer, no screens in my house like that,” says Jacob Fiset, XR enthusiast and owner of Vision Pro.
Fiset doesn’t use a Mac, but he has figured out a way to connect his PC to the headset using open source software. He mostly uses his Vision Pro at the office, although he admits he is alone in doing so.
David Larose, chief information officer of Drancy, a suburb of Paris, France, is currently tinkering with Vision Pro to create a more personal CCTV screen. “Sometimes, the police or Secret Service need access to our cameras, but we don’t have the space or extra TVs to give them. My idea is to allow them to have their own completely private CCTV wall without using our physical CCTV wall,” says LaRose.
A headset like the Vision Pro or Galaxy XR could change how hospitals train new doctors and update aging infrastructure.
Dr. Tommy Korn, chief spatial computing officer at Sharp Healthcare, says, “It’s common to see doctors have multiple screens and multiple monitors. In healthcare, these screens are not cheap. In the operating room, each of those monitors can cost around $20,000. If you do the math, you can see that it costs $40,000 to $80,000 compared to a Vision Pro.”
Korn points out that hospitals have been slow to update technological infrastructure, with many relying on the same technology as they did in the 1980s. Gadgets like tablets and smartphones are just beginning to be widely adopted.
Vision Pro is attractive because it enables doctors to change multiple monitors in the operating room or while completing medical paperwork with relevant patient data. For example, radiologists can also convert scans into 3D models for better diagnosis instead of looking at 2D images. Surgeons could view patient data And Enhanced overlay to guide incisions, as opposed to printed paper instructions or multiple overhead monitors. you get the idea.
For now, these are the hypotheticals that Korn and other global health institutions are currently conducting feasibility tests on — a tall undertaking given that hospitals must adhere to higher regulatory standards than typical businesses for patient privacy and security. Still, the promise was so impressive that Korn purchased 30 Vision Pros for his hospital.
But even evangelists and enterprise users have a clear idea of the challenges ahead. Comfort, fit, price and lack of flexibility were all cited as major problem points.
“I really like to wear my Vision Pro with a rigid headstrap called the AnaPro,” says Justin Ryan, an XR maker who runs local insiderRyan says he had to come up with his own way to make the headset wearable for long periods of time, which included abandoning the light seal,
“Once you get rid of the light seal, for people who are concerned about makeup, it helps ease those concerns. I don’t have hair, so I’m never worried about messing up my hair, but it’s a very common thing for people when they say ‘I don’t know if I have to put this headset on.'”
Some people are also worried about whether companies are willing to continue this for a long time. One of the biggest hurdles for developers and businesses is determining which companies are truly committed to this area – and which companies might just shut down the headset after a year or two.
“It’s a bad value and a bad investment. But it’s not really about me.”
“The biggest challenge right now is that it’s still a niche market, which is far from stable,” says Tom Krikorian, a VisionOS developer who builds enterprise-focused apps. “Apple is mostly known for consumer devices like the iPhone, so I think there’s a legitimate concern that they won’t invest as much in the future of the Vision Pro if it doesn’t make ‘huge’ earnings.”
As far as the Galaxy XR headset and its Android XR operating system are concerned, Krikorian says developers are considering whether Google can deliver. Google has a history of underinvesting and closing projects prematurely, and developers have to learn the ropes from the beginning. “I’m definitely curious about it, but looking at my current customers, I’m not sure it’ll be a hit for enterprise yet,” Krikorian says.
But for some people, it doesn’t really matter whether or not these headsets will ever become mainstream.
“It’s a bad value and a bad investment. But it’s really not for me,” says XR enthusiast Ruby Voigt. Voigt isn’t a developer, but she keeps her Vision Pro on a shelf right below her Apple LISA computer. For him, it’s enough to get a taste of the future and own a piece of technological history.