Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, earlier this week revealed a new set of VR glasses that it says provide “a cinema-scale screen with spatial audio anywhere you happen to be”. Set to be released in spring 2027, at just 100g the Meta VR Glasses are five times lighter than its Meta Quest 3 headset and will cost $1,299.99 US dollars, around two thirds less than the Apple Vision Pro.

At the Meta Connect 2026 reveal, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg described them as offering a “magical feeling of presence and immersion.”

Meta has achieved the 100g weight figure as the compute, battery and storage elements are all housed in a 300g puck connected to the glasses by an optical cable; which it says can be clipped to a bag.

Like Apple’s device, the VR glasses will use eye-tracking and hand gestures to operate rather than a controller. The display lenses use micro-OLED technology to deliver 2,412 x 2,288 pixels per eye, which it describes as a “5K Infinite Display”.

The field of view is 70° horizontal by 66° vertical and with 37 pixels per degree to eliminate any screen-door effect text and textures should be sharp. It also support Dolby Vision and 120Hz for high-frame-rate movies and is the first-ever IMAX Enhanced-certified VR hardware. Dolby Atmos is delivered via speakers in the frames, which Meta says will provide an immersive spatial audio experience.

The system is powered by Qualcomm’s recently announced Snapdragon Reality Elite processor, which should mean great performance and leading-edge power efficiency. That said, the battery life claim is “up to” three hours, so you won’t be able to watch either of the last two Avatar films in one sitting.

The glasses support 3D, however, and, for the first time outside of the Apple ecosystem, you’ll be able to watch 3D movies from Disney+ . In addition, Meta said that it will work to bring 3D experiences curated especially for the headset. These include Open Season , a series about NBA champion Draymond Green, shot in immersive 3D 180 video; a 3D action movie called Stuntnuts from director Matthew Vaughn ( Kingsmen , Argylle ); and a 180-degree 3D-shot series called National Geographic: Beyond , which was created in collaboration with ILM National Geographic.

Beyond that, Meta also said it was going to offer “VR Enhanced Cinema”. Describing this as a film playing “in 3D with spatial audio while the room around you responds to it, with immersive environments and dynamic effects tied to what is on screen”. This implies some kind of mixed reality experience for movies, a sort of virtual ‘Secret Cinema’-like immersive experience.

Beyond films, Meta said that at launch, 75 games will be available to play on the glasses designed to be played with hand gestures, and by adding Touch Plus controllers, the entire Meta Quest catalog will be available to play.

For communications, it said it will use hologram technology to create a photorealistic digital avatar, which will include the person’s real-time expression and reactions for hands-free video calling. If the other person also has a pair of Meta VR Glasses, they will appear to be in front of you, while if the person is using a conventional device, they will see your avatar on their screen. Meta also said that you can connect a Mac or PC to create a virtual office.

While Apple’s Vision Pro remains the pinnacle of personal home cinema that I’ve experienced so far, at a third of the price and up to an sixth of the weight on your face, it will be interesting to see how Meta VR glasses measure up come their arrival in spring 2027.

Unlike the Cupertino-based company, it seems significant that Meta emphasized this as an entertainment device first, with its productivity potential presented as secondary uses.

It’s not just Apple that Meta is competing with. The RayNeo GT Max glasses, released in August 2026 for an accessible £399/$429, are also aimed at movie watching, but without the mixed reality immersion capabilities of the Meta glasses; there are also the Google-powered Xreal Aura , the Bigscreen Beyond 2 and the Goovis G3X . If you like the idea of carrying a personal cinema around with you everywhere you go, it certainly seems that this is a market worth keeping an eye on.