There are few technologies that have stumbled to market on such a meandering path as display headsets. Be it virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality or extended reality, the final reality has proved underwhelming. But expectations continue to be high, with some suggesting that 2023 will finally be the year that changes everything, as Facebook-parent Meta goes all in on VR and even Apple releases hardware. Perhaps.
We’ve been promised such glory before. The first headset was made back in 1968 by Ivan Sutherland and his team of students at Harvard. It showed 3D images laid over reality, making it augmented reality before the term virtual reality was even coined. After a host of VR failures in the 1990s – such as Sega VR and Nintendo Virtual Boy – Palmer Luckey popped up with a Kickstarter for the Oculus Rift in 2012, which was two years later snapped up by Facebook, now Meta, for $2 billion. It’s since sold 20 million devices in its Meta Quest lineup – not quite a mainstream success, but hardly a failure.
Then there’s AR. Google Glass and Snap Spectacles failed to take off, and Magic Leap disappointed with its first launch before pivoting to enterprise. Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 is still around, but the firm had to reassure developers that support for its enterprise AR headset would survive
