The new store in California will include Meta’s virtual reality headsets, video chat devices, and smart glasses.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, isn’t happy with only selling virtual reality headsets, video chat devices, and smart eyewear over the internet. It wants customers to try out the products in person.
Meta announced on Monday that its first retail outlet will open on May 9. The 1,550-square-foot building will be located on the social network’s Burlingame, California, headquarters, where employees are focused on the metaverse – virtual worlds where people may work, play, and communicate. The launch indicates how serious the digital behemoth is about producing consumer goods, as it competes with rivals with physical locations such as Google and Apple. However, virtual reality headsets and smart glasses, which allow you to enter these virtual universes, have yet to acquire general acceptance.
As more individuals explore with technology, Meta hopes that they will see why CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks the metaverse will eventually replace the mobile internet.
“Individuals may acquire a better appreciation for technology if they have had the chance to engage with it. Visitors should leave and tell their friends, “You have to check out the Meta Store,” if we did our job effectively.” The executive director of the Meta Store, Martin Gilliard, stated in a statement.
At the Meta Store, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, tries out a virtual reality headset.
Meta’s first pair of smart glasses, developed in conjunction with Ray-Ban, will be on show in the store, allowing for up to 60-second photo and video recording. Visitors will also get the opportunity to see Facebook’s Portal line of video chat devices, which were popular during the coronavirus epidemic. Attendees will also get the chance to try out the company’s newest virtual reality headgear, the Quest 2, which allows them to play games like Beat Saber, Golf Plus, Real VR Fishing, and Supernatural. The virtual reality experience will be shown on a wall-to-wall curved LED screen.
The Quest 2 virtual reality headsets and accessories, as well as Portal video chat devices, will be sold at the store. They’ll be able to try on Ray-Ban Stories glasses as well, but they’ll have to order them on Ray-Ban.com. Meta has launched a shop page on meta.com that will host all of the company’s hardware components in one place.
The Meta Store will be open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. The address is 322 Airport Blvd.
Facebook has tried to show off its virtual reality headsets in Best Buy stores, but it has never created its own store. Hundreds of demo stations for its Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets were closed at Best Buy stores throughout the United States in 2017, citing “seasonal changes.”
Since then, Facebook has rebranded as Meta, raising awareness of the metaverse. Facebook has been involved in a number of privacy issues, which may have made some buyers apprehensive about purchasing a product made by the company under its previous title.
The number of people who use Meta’s virtual reality headsets, Portal devices, or smart glasses has not been reported. As the company invests in more futuristic technologies, such as augmented reality eyewear, Meta’s Reality Labs subsidiary, which is responsible for these items, is predicted to lose more than $10 billion in 2021. Augmented reality allows people to superimpose digital graphics on their perspective of the real world.
Other IT behemoths have opened physical locations. In 2021, Google opened its first store in New York, selling Pixel phones and Nest smart speakers. Snap, the company behind the ephemeral messaging app Snapchat, put up temporary pop-up shops in New York and Los Angeles to show off its Spectacles video-recording glasses. Amazon, the world’s biggest e-commerce corporation, has announced that it would focus on growing its brick-and-mortar business via grocery stores and fashion. Amazon said in March that it will shut 68 stores throughout the US and the UK, including ones that sold books, electronics, and toys.
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