Apple’s Vision Pro Headset Is Tech’s Latest Bid To Crack AR/VR Devices—Here’s How Rival Products Have Performed

Meta entered the VR/AR market with its acquisition of headset maker Oculus back in 2014 but in 2021, Facebook officially changed its company name as part of a wider effort to pivot towards building the “metaverse.”

Headsets made by Meta—previously under the Oculus brand—account for the largest share in a relatively small market, having reportedly sold more than 20 million headsets so far.

Despite its success, Meta’s most recent foray into the more premium segment of the VR/AR headset market has been rocky, with the $1,500 Meta Quest Pro enduring poor reviews and weak sales, which prompted the company to slash its price by $500 just four months after its launch.

Google was the first major tech company to enter the realm of AR, unveiling the “Google Glass” to the public for the first time in 2012, but was only made available to a limited group of people at a price of $1,500 a year later.

Owing to its steep price and limited app support, the glasses never caught on with consumers and also faced a major social backlash including being banned from various public establishments over a number of concerns—especially its camera which could record video.

Google briefly pivoted to offering a revamped version of the Glass as an enterprise product for factories run by companies like DHL and Boeing, but eventually, sales of the product were completely discontinued in March of this year.

Microsoft showed off its augmented reality headset, the Hololens, for the first time at a Windows 10 event in early 2015, which, unlike Apple’s Vision Pro, projected its images on a see-through display instead of using front-facing cameras.

Despite Microsoft showing off many consumer-centric features—like using games, video calls and watching TV—the Hololens is targeted towards developer and commercial uses and is priced at $3,000.

A revised version called the Hololens 2—priced at $3,500—was revealed in 2019 and the technology is being tested by the U.S. Army, but the fate of the product remains hazy following the exit of the head of the project from Microsoft last year and restructuring of the unit.

Several other companies like Sony, HTC and Valve have released versions of their own VR headsets, but most of these devices have primarily focused on gaming and need to be paired with a video game console or gaming PC to operate.