Who’s shopping for VR and XR headsets anyway?

From the skin, it seems like digital and blended actuality is having a second. Three new headsets have launched or been introduced within the final month: There’s Apple’s M5 Vision Pro, the Samsung Galaxy XR, and, simply this week, Valve introduced the Steam Frame. Given the advertising, you may assume meaning Big Tech thinks this tech lastly has some mass-market attraction. But, within the practically 60 years because the first VR headset, one factor stays true: This isn’t the subsequent iPhone.

“Let’s put it this way,” says Tuong Huy Nguyen, a director analyst on Gartner’s rising applied sciences and traits workforce. “Everyone who wants a VR headset already has one.”

It’s not a query of if individuals are shopping for these headsets. They are — simply not in numbers that sign the tech is prepared for prime time. According to IDC, Apple shipped roughly 400,000 Vision Pro headsets in 2024. That is smart, given the $3,500 price ticket. But Meta’s headsets are comparatively reasonably priced at $300 to $500 and make for standard Christmas items. Meta shipped roughly 5.6 million headsets in 2024. Comparatively, 1.2 billion smartphones had been shipped throughout the identical time-frame.

And regardless of what may seem like hype across the Vision Pro and the Galaxy XR, Counterpoint Research senior analyst Flora Tang mentioned that premium headsets, or people who price greater than $1,000, will symbolize simply 5 to six % of complete VR shipments in 2025. That aligns with IDC’s numbers, which estimate that these premium headsets will account for roughly 6.2 % of the overall market in 2024.

But for such a small market, Big Tech continues to wager massive that that is the long run. Meta’s Reality Labs, the section behind its Quest headsets and Ray-Ban sensible glasses, simply posted an operating loss of $4.4 billion on $470 million in gross sales throughout its third quarter.

So the true query is who is shopping for these headsets? And why are they so compelling to the most important names in tech?

A stepping stone to sensible glasses

Long story brief: Headsets are a little bit of a pink herring. These cumbersome units aren’t actually the top purpose. Instead, it’s glossy, discreet sensible glasses that allow you to meld the true world with the digital.

Just have a look at Meta. It poured billions over a number of years into headsets, earlier than graduating to audio-only sensible glasses with cameras in 2021. Then, final month, it launched the Meta Ray-Ban Display, its first glasses with a heads-up show. This is similar roadmap that Google, Samsung, and Apple are at the moment on. But whereas firms work on refining glossy, wearable glasses, they have to concurrently put money into headsets to construct out the software program.

“Eventually, we all know we want to get to the glasses, but it’s just going to be a while until we get there,” says Jitesh Ubrani, IDC’s analysis supervisor for cell worldwide system trackers, referring to the dream of Tony Stark-like sensible glasses with all of the computing capabilities of XR headsets.

“The headset is a form factor that’s sort of here for now, and in the future, maybe gamers will use it. It’s here for a flash in the pan so we can get to the thing that we actually want.”

So who’s shopping for headsets?

While the typical particular person desires a completed product, stepping stones are completely the purview of enterprises.

“The largest portion of Apple Vision Pro headsets actually went to developers and businesses. They’re the ones trying to create new experiences,” says IDC’s Ubrani. “What we saw for Vision Pro, and I strongly suspect we’ll see the same for Galaxy XR, is it’s essentially priced out of consumers’ hands. And the consumers who do want an XR experience have much cheaper options available.”

If you’re paying with your personal {dollars}, a gadget must do as many issues as doable. With a company price range, there’s extra flexibility for cutting-edge units that do maybe one or two issues properly.

“In the short and mid-term, what we need and what will get adopted is purpose-built devices,” says Nguyen, the Gartner analyst. “Before today’s smartphones, it was PDAs and BlackBerrys. Very purpose-built if you’re a business person who needs your emails, or something like that. That’s where we are today.”

The numbers don’t lie, both. IDC says Apple might have solely shipped 400,000 Vision Pros in 2024, nevertheless it held 30 % of the enterprise market, second solely to Meta at 47 %.

Likewise, the overwhelming majority of Vision Pro house owners The Verge spoke with had been impartial XR builders or enterprise customers. Most had paid for the units out of their very own pocket.

All had a longtime curiosity on this area, with many both proudly owning or having beforehand owned Quest headsets. Many had dabbled or had been keen on experimenting with Samsung’s Galaxy XR. (Unsurprisingly, value was the most important barrier there.) Most loved immersive content material and passthrough capabilities, and a handful had an curiosity in gaming. But the commonest use case for each single analyst and headset proprietor I talked to?

Making jobs that want a number of massive screens simpler.

“I’m a programmer, so I like having a large workspace. If I have to code on a small screen, having multiple windows open — it feels very cramped. The goal for me was always to replace screens and my laptop is one of them. I’d be very happy if in the future I have no TV, no computer, like no screens in my home,” says Jacob Fiset, an XR fanatic and Vision Pro proprietor.

Fiset doesn’t use a Mac, however has discovered a technique to join his PC to the headset utilizing open-source software program. He largely makes use of his Vision Pro on the workplace, although he acknowledges that he’s alone in doing so.

David Larose, chief info officer of Drancy, a suburb of Paris, France, is at the moment tinkering with the Vision Pro to create extra personal CCTV screens. “Sometimes, police or secret service needs access to our cameras but we don’t have space or extra TVs to give them. My idea is to allow them to have their own totally private CCTV wall without using our physical one,” Larose says.

Headsets just like the Vision Pro or Galaxy XR may change how hospitals prepare new medical doctors and replace outdated infrastructure.

“It’s commonplace to see doctors having multiple screens and multiple monitors. In healthcare, these screens are not cheap. In the operating room, each of those monitors can be about $20,000. If you do the math, you can see it costs $40,000 to $80,000 compared to one Vision Pro,” says Dr. Tommy Korn, chief spatial computing officer at Sharp HealthCare.

Korn explains that hospitals have been gradual to replace technological infrastructure, with many hospitals counting on the identical tech as they did within the Eighties. Gadgets like tablets and smartphones are solely simply now beginning to be extensively adopted.

The Vision Pro is interesting as a result of it permits medical doctors to switch a number of screens in working rooms or when finishing medical paperwork with related affected person knowledge. Radiologists, as an illustration, may additionally blow up scans into 3D fashions for higher diagnoses as a substitute of observing 2D photos. Surgeons may see affected person knowledge and augmented overlays to information incisions, versus printed paper directions or a number of overhead screens. You get the concept.

For now, these are hypotheticals that Korn and different international well being establishments are at the moment conducting feasibility assessments for — a prolonged endeavor on condition that hospitals should adhere to increased regulatory requirements than typical companies for affected person privateness and security. Even so, the promise was compelling sufficient that Korn purchased 30 Vision Pros for his hospital.

But even the evangelists and enterprise customers are clear-eyed concerning the challenges forward. Comfort, match, value, and lack of flexibility had been all cited as main ache factors.

“I actually prefer to wear my Vision Pro with a rigid head strap called the Annapro,” says Justin Ryan, an XR creator who runs Spatial Insider. Ryan says he had to determine his personal technique to make the headset wearable for longer durations, which incorporates forgoing the sunshine seal.

“Once you get rid of the light seal, for people that are concerned about makeup, that helps alleviate those concerns. I don’t have hair, so I’m never worried about messing my hair up, but it’s a very common thing for people when they say ‘I don’t know if I want to put this headset on.’”

Some are additionally involved about whether or not firms are prepared to stay it out for the lengthy haul. One of the most important hurdles builders and companies have is sussing out which firms are actually dedicated to the area — and which could discontinue a headset after a yr or two.

“The biggest challenge right now is that it’s still very much a niche market, far from being stable,” says Tom Krikorian, a visionOS developer who creates enterprise-focused apps. “Apple is mostly known for doing consumer devices such as the iPhone, so I think there’s a valid concern that they might just not invest more in the future of Vision Pro if it doesn’t make ‘very big’ money.”

As for the Galaxy XR headset and its Android XR working system, Krikorian says builders are weighing whether or not Google can ship. Google has a historical past of underinvesting and prematurely pulling the plug on tasks, and builders should be taught the ropes from scratch. “I’m definitely curious about it, but given my current clients, I’m not sure it’s going to be a hit for enterprise just yet,” says Krikorian.

But for some, it doesn’t actually matter if these headsets ever grow to be mainstream.

“It’s a bad value and a worse investment. But that’s not really what it’s about to me,” says Ruby Voigt, an XR fanatic. Voigt isn’t a dev, however she retains her Vision Pro on a shelf proper below her Apple LISA laptop. For her, getting a style of the long run and proudly owning a bit of tech historical past is sufficient.