LG has announced that it’s bringing its OLED TV expertise to the XR (extended reality) space, and plans to launch some kind of device next year.
The report comes via South Korean news outlet The Guru (translated to English) in which LG Electronics CEO Cho Joo-wan told a reporter at CES 2024 that “[LG] will launch an XR device as early as next year.”
Not much else is known about the device; however, there were rumors late last year (via ET News, also translated from Korean) that LG was working on a VR headset, which would be powered by the then-unannounced Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 from Qualcomm. The same rumor correctly predicted that the Samsung XR/VR headset would use this new chipset, so while we should still take this latest leak with a pinch of salt there appears to be a decent chance that it’s accurate.
If the LG headset does indeed boast a Snapdragon XR2+ Gen then we should expect it to be a high-end XR headset that’ll rival the likes of the soon-to-release Apple Vision Pro. This would also mean the headset is likely to be pricey – we’d expect somewhere in the region of $2,000 / £2,000 / AU$3,000.
As noted by an Upload VR report on the LG XR device announcement, the Korean language doesn’t always differentiate between singular and plural. As such, it’s possible that LG wants to release more than one XR device in 2025 – and if that’s the case we’d expect to see a high-end Apple Vision Pro rival, and a more affordable option that competes with the Meta Quest 3 or the recently announced Xreal Air 2 Ultra.
Is LG working alone?
Alongside Qualcomm, LG might be working with another XR veteran to bring its headset to life – Meta, though reports suggest it would be LG helping Meta not the other way around.
In February 2023 we reported that Meta was looking to partner with LG to create OLED displays for its XR headsets – most likely the Meta Quest Pro 2, but possibly the Meta Quest 4 as well.
If a Quest Pro 2 is on the way we’ve hypothesized that 2025 is most likely the earliest we’d see one; Meta likes to tease new XR hardware a year in advance, and typically makes announcements at its Meta Connect event that happens in September / October, so we’d likely get a 2024 teaser and a 2025 release.
This schedule fits with LG’s plan to launch a device next year, suggesting that the next Meta headset and the LG headset are one and the same.
That said, there’s a chance that LG is working on an XR project without Meta.
A few months after the February leak, in July 2023, there were reports that Meta had cancelled the Quest Pro 2. Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth took to Instagram Stories to deny the rumor, though his argument was based on a technicality – saying a canceled prototype isn’t the Quest Pro 2 until Meta names it the Quest Pro 2.
This confusing explanation leaves the door open to the Quest Pro 2 being delayed – likely due to the original’s seemingly very lackluster sales (we estimate the Quest Pro is around 86 times less popular than the Quest 2 using Steam Hardware Survey data), and the arrival of the Vision Pro.
If LG is sitting on an excellent OLED display design – while Meta is back at the drawing board stage – why wouldn’t the South Korean display company leverage this screen, and its home entertainment expertise, to create a killer headset of its own?