Who buys VR and XR headsets anyway?

From the outside looking in, it seems like virtual and mixed reality are having a moment. Three new headphones have been launched or announced in the past month: There are the Apple ones M5 Vision Prothe Samsung Galaxy XRAnd just this week, Valve announced… Steam frame. Given the marketing, you might assume this means that big tech companies think this technology finally has some mass-market appeal. But, nearly 60 years since the first VR headset, one thing remains true: This isn’t the next iPhone.

“Let’s put it this way,” says Tung Huy Nguyen, an analyst director on Gartner’s Emerging Technologies and Trends team. “Everyone who wants a VR headset already has one.”

It’s not a question of whether people buy these headphones. They are, but not in numbers that suggest the technology is ready for prime time. According to IDC, Apple will ship approximately 400,000 Vision Pro headphones in 2024. This makes sense, given their $3,500 price tag. But Meta headphones are relatively affordable at $300 to $500 and are popular Christmas gifts. Meta shipped approximately 5.6 million headphones in 2024. Relatively speaking, 1.2 one billion Smartphones It shipped within the same time frame.

Despite what may seem like hype around the Vision Pro and Galaxy

But for such a small market, big tech companies continue to bet big that this is the future. Meta’s Reality Labs, the part behind the Quest headphones and Ray-Ban smart glasses, has posted an announcement Operating loss of $4.4 billion Over $470 million in sales during the third quarter.

So the real question is from Are you buying these headphones? And why are they so compelling to the biggest names in tech?

A starting point for smart glasses

Long story short: headphones are a bit of a red herring. These bulky devices are not actually the end goal. Instead, they’re stylish and discreet smart glasses that let you merge the real world with the digital one.

Just look at the meta. It spent billions over several years on headphones, before graduating to… Audio-only smart glasses with cameras In 2021. Then it launched last month Meta Ray Ban offerThe first glasses with a head-up display. This is the same roadmap that Google, Samsungand apple Currently running. But as companies work to improve wearable, stylish eyeglasses, they… He owns To simultaneously invest in headphones to build the software.

“Ultimately, we all know we want to get to glasses, but it’s going to take a while to get there,” says Jitesh Ubrani, IDC’s director of worldwide mobile tracker research, referring to the dream of Tony Stark-style smart glasses with all the computing power of the XR headphones.

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

So who buys headphones?

While the average person wants a I finish The product, the starting point is absolutely the business of companies.

“The bulk of the Apple Vision Pro headphones have gone to developers and businesses. They’re the ones trying to create new experiences,” says IDC’s Obrani. “What we saw with the Vision Pro, and I strongly suspect we’ll see the same thing for the Galaxy He does Want to try out the XR they have much cheaper options available.

If you’re paying with your own money, the tool should do as many things as possible. With a company’s budget, there’s more flexibility for high-end hardware that maybe does a thing or two well.

“In the short to medium term, what we need and what will be adopted is purpose-built devices,” says Nguyen, the Gartner analyst. “Before today’s smartphones, PDAs and BlackBerrys were specifically designed for this purpose if you were a business person who needed your emails, or something like that. this Where are we today?”

Numbers don’t lie either. IDC says Apple may have only shipped 400,000 Vision Pro devices in 2024, but it captured 30 percent of the enterprise market, second only to the Meta at 47 percent.

Likewise, the vast majority of Vision Pro owners Edge We spoke with independent XR developers or enterprise users. Most of them paid for the devices out of their own pockets.

All had a long-standing interest in this area, as many of them owned or had previously owned Quest headsets. Many have been engaged or interested in trying out the Samsung Galaxy XR. (Not surprisingly, price was the biggest barrier in this area.) Most enjoyed the immersive content and passability possibilities, and a few were interested in the games. But the most common use case for every analyst and headphone owner I spoke to?

Make jobs that require a lot of large screens easier.

“I’m a programmer, so I like to have a large workspace. If I have to code on a small screen, with multiple windows open – it feels very cramped. The goal for me has always been to replace screens and my laptop was one of them. I would be very happy if I didn’t have a TV or a computer in the future, and I don’t have monitors in my house,” says Jacob Fisset, XR enthusiast and Vision Pro owner.

Fiset doesn’t use a Mac, but he figured out a way to connect his computer to the headphones using open source software. He mostly uses his Vision Pro in the office, though he admits he’s the only one who does it.

David Larose, CIO of Drancy, a suburb of Paris, France, is currently modifying the Vision Pro to create more private CCTV displays. “Sometimes the police or Secret Service need access to our cameras, but we don’t have the space or extra TVs to give them,” Larose says. “My idea is to let them have their own CCTV wall completely without using our physical wall.”

Headphones like the Vision Pro or Galaxy XR could change how hospitals train new doctors and modernize aging infrastructure.

“It’s common to see doctors with multiple monitors and multiple monitors. In healthcare, these monitors are not cheap. In the operating room, each of these monitors can cost about $20,000. If you do the math, you can see that they cost anywhere from $40,000 to $80,000 compared to a single Vision Pro,” says Dr. Tommy Korn. Chief Spatial Computing Officer At Sharp Healthcare.

Korn explains that hospitals have been slow to update their technology infrastructure, with many hospitals relying on the same technology as they did in the 1980s. Gadgets like tablets and smartphones are just beginning to be widely adopted.

Vision Pro is attractive because it enables doctors to replace multiple monitors in operating rooms or when completing medical paperwork with relevant patient data. For example, radiologists can also convert scans into 3D models to get a better diagnosis instead of staring at 2D images. Surgeons can see patient data and Reinforced overlays guide incisions, instead of printed paper instructions or multiple overhead screens. You get the idea.

For now, these are the hypotheses that Korn and other global health organizations are currently conducting feasibility tests for — a tall task given that hospitals must adhere to higher regulatory standards than typical companies regarding patient privacy and safety. However, the promise was convincing enough that Korn purchased 30 Vision Pros for his hospital.

But even evangelists and enterprise users have a clear vision of the challenges ahead. Comfort, fit, price and lack of flexibility were cited as major pain points.

“I actually prefer to wear my Vision Pro with a rigid head strap called Annapro,” says Justin Ryan, the creator of the XR who runs it. Spatial insight. Ryan says he had to come up with his own way to make the headphone wearable for longer periods, which involved ditching the light seal.

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

Some are also concerned about whether companies are prepared to stick around for the long term. One of the biggest hurdles developers and companies face is knowing which companies are truly committed to this space, and which companies may stop using headsets after a year or two.

“The biggest challenge now is that it’s still very much a niche market, and far from stable,” says Tom Krikorian, a VisionOS developer who creates enterprise-focused apps. “Apple is mostly known for making consumer devices like the iPhone, so I think there’s a legitimate concern that it might not invest more in the future of the Vision Pro if it doesn’t make ‘very significant’ money.”

As for the Galaxy XR headphones and its Android XR operating system, Krikorian says that developers are studying whether Google can achieve this. Google has a history of underinvesting and stopping projects prematurely, and developers will have to learn the ropes from scratch. “I’m definitely curious about this, but given my current clients, I’m not sure it’s going to be a huge success for organizations yet,” says Krikorian.

But for some, it doesn’t really matter whether these headphones go mainstream or not.

“It’s a bad value and an even worse investment,” says Robbie Voigt, an XR enthusiast. “But that’s not really my concern.” Voigt is not a developer, but she keeps her Vision Pro on a shelf under her Apple LISA computer. For her, it is enough to taste the future and own a part of the history of technology.