VR is in a very bad place right now and smart glasses are to blame

Do you remember VR? This is this thing where you put a helmet and … you remember VR, right? If you don’t do it Remember VR, you could not be blamed, because things have taken a tour since the return in 2023, and at the moment, the VR seems to be on the rear burner, cold, with the extinct heat, while its sister, XR / AR technology is at the front and in the center, attracting all the star attention of the chef.

It is not only a feeling either; There are figures to endure this trend. From year to year, Meta said last week that Meta Reality Labs sales were down $ 440 million in the first quarter from $ 2024 to $ 412 million in the first quarter of 2025. This drop, by Meta’s own admission, is largely due to sales of Tanking quests. What makes this trend interesting is not only the hasty decline in quest sales; This is the fact that in the same time, sales of his increasingly popular Ray-Ban intelligent glasses seem to be through the roof. According to the meta-director of the CFO Susan Li, the loss of income of Reality Labs was “due to lower meta-leaves sales, which were partially offset by the increase in sales of Ray-Ban Meta AI”. By the way, this increase in income is apparently triple from one year to the next.

If I read in the Li breakdown, the sales of quests are tanking and smart glasses save the day. Or, I guess it’s a way to look at it. Another way to see this trend is that VR slips away, and smart glasses (and XR / AR potential inside) are to pick up the parts. It may seem sensational, but it is also perfectly logical in another way.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like VR / XR helmets; I think that quest 3 is the perfect helmet for the moment because it is light, affordable and always offers a complete XR experience that will satisfy the XR / VR fans established and will impress beginners. That being said, they are always a burden. Rattating of a helmet on your face is intrinsically invasive and not exactly what most call for a pleasant moment. Even quest 3, which is light and generally comfortable compared to competition, carries on your eyes, your face and your poor sweaty skin after a while.

As much as I like the quest for what it could be, it is difficult to reconcile this with what it is right now. Intelligent glasses, on the other hand, do not share these problems. Of course, Meta’s Ray -Ban glasses do not even make half of what we want them to do at this stage – they don’t even have any presentation, but they are a light touch. If you want a taste of intelligent features such as Bluetooth audio, a vocal assistant and an AI (very delicate), then you can hang a pair, slap them on your face and wear them for hours without having the impression of wear something other than an ordinary glasses.

The lesson here is that it is better to do a little what you expect (enough to qualify like a good start) than to try to do All At the cost of an awkward form factor, and this shines with regard to intelligent glasses compared to VR helmets. Not only that, but smart glasses, although always work in progress, are also potentially much more useful in your daily life. Due to their bright factor, you can really bring them to the real world and use them for real things like taking photos or calling your mom. Which is a reminder: you should call your mom, smart glasses or not.

No matter where your priorities or allegiances are, tides, as they often do in emerging technology, seem to turn. In addition to that, the whole last rhetoric around the smart and XR / ARD glasses of Tim Cook from Apple and Mark Zuckerberg of Apple should give you an indication of the way these waters flow. If you are a fan of intelligent glasses, you have nothing to fear, but if you were delighted to achieve our full VR future, you may have to wait a little longer.