Meta VR Glasses cost $1,299 and ship spring 2027; the unit behind them lost $4.6 billion last quarter

Meta Platforms showed its Meta VR Glasses at its Connect conference on Wednesday. It is a virtual reality headset built as a pair of glasses, weighing about 100 grams, and it goes on sale in spring 2027 for $1,299.99, according to Meta's release. That is why "meta vr glasses" is trending in U.S. searches. Investors liked the event: Meta shares were at $768.91 at 1:45 p.m. New York time, up $24.81 or 3.33% from Wednesday's $744.10 close, according to Nasdaq data.

What Meta actually announced

• Meta VR Glasses, $1,299.99, spring 2027. Meta says they are five times lighter than the Quest 3. The glasses hold the displays and sensors. A separate puck, connected by an optical cable, carries a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the battery and the storage. Meta rates it at up to three hours of high-resolution video playback. You control it with your eyes, hand gestures and voice, not controllers.
• Content deals. Meta lists Disney+ 3D films starting in November, IMAX Enhanced certification, and ESPN, MLB, NBC Sports, TNT Sports and UFC for more than 100 immersive live sports events a year once the glasses launch.
• Cheaper AI glasses, on sale now. Ray-Ban Meta Audio has no camera, starts at $349 and ships October 13. Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 starts at $449. A new Meta Adventurer frame starts at $249, which Meta calls its lowest price yet. Meta says it will offer more than 100 glasses options by year-end through its EssilorLuxottica partnership.
• Muse Charm. This is a handheld device for talking to Meta's Muse AI agent. CNBC reported that Zuckerberg gave no price and said Meta plans to ship it in time for the holidays in December.

CNBC noted that the VR Glasses are Meta's first new VR device since the $299 Quest 3S in 2024. The obvious comparison is Apple's Vision Pro, which CNBC put at $3,699. That is about 2.8 times Meta's price.

The number behind the launch

This hardware comes out of Reality Labs, the Meta segment that makes its VR and AR devices, software and content. In the second-quarter results Meta filed with the SEC, Reality Labs had:

That is about $10.70 of operating loss for every dollar of revenue in the quarter. Revenue grew about 16% from a year earlier, but the loss grew too. Reality Labs brought in 0.7% of Meta's $60.8 billion quarterly revenue. Advertising brought in $59.4 billion, about 98%.

Some rough math shows the scale. Reality Labs' whole second-quarter revenue equals about 331,500 VR Glasses at $1,299.99, and that device does not ship for months. The Connect lineup does not fix Reality Labs' economics in the near term. What investors are paying for is the bet that cheaper glasses and the Muse agent become a platform Meta owns. Today Meta runs its apps on phones made by Apple and Google.

What the market is watching

CNBC said Morgan Stanley kept its $775 price target on Thursday and JPMorgan raised its target to $920 from $820. Both firms focused on Muse, meaning its connectors to retailers and the fees Meta could earn on purchases the agent completes. Neither focused on headset sales. On Nasdaq's summary page, Meta's market value was about $1.96 trillion. Thursday's intraday high of $774.25 was above the $763.90 Nasdaq lists as its 52-week high. CNBC put the stock's record close at $790, set in August 2025.

There are three open questions. The first is whether cheaper glasses priced from $249 sell in volume. The second is how quickly Muse starts earning subscription and transaction revenue. The third, which CNBC's analysis also raised, is privacy: Meta is asking buyers to wear its cameras and let an agent act on their accounts. The next check on Reality Labs spending is Meta's third-quarter report. For background, see our earlier coverage of Meta's Muse launch and how much of September's big-tech rally is Meta.

Sources: Meta Newsroom, VR Glasses; Meta Newsroom, AI glasses; Meta Q2 2026 results, SEC; CNBC; CNBC; Nasdaq quote data as of 1:45 p.m. ET. This is market information, not investment advice.