Meta Platforms Inc. unveiled a new $1,299 virtual reality headset Wednesday that undercuts Apple's Vision Pro on both price and size, marking a significant shift in headset design that the company says puts its Reality Labs division on track toward profitability.

The device, called Meta VR Glasses, was revealed by Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg during the company's annual Meta Connect developer conference at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters. It represents a fundamentally different approach to headset engineering compared with Meta's earlier Quest-branded devices and Apple's own Vision Pro. Rather than housing the processor, battery, cooling fan and other computing components inside the headset itself, as Meta's previous models have done, the new device shifts nearly all of that hardware into an external pack that can clip to a user's pocket or sit on a nearby table, connected to the glasses by a cable.

That redesign dramatically reduces the weight users must wear on their face. According to reporting on the device, Meta VR Glasses weigh approximately 100 grams, roughly one-sixth the weight of Apple's Vision Pro and about one-fifth the weight of Meta's own Quest 3S headset. Apple's Vision Pro, by comparison, moves only its battery to an external pack while keeping its processor and other core computing components inside the headset itself.

Zuckerberg framed the device as a breakthrough in delivering immersive........

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