Meta Platform META.O  unveiled the Quest Pro virtual and mixed reality headset on Tuesday, marking a milestone in Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's push into the high-end market for augmented reality computing devices.

Meta is pitching the Quest Pro as a productivity device, aimed at designers, architects and other creative professionals.

The headset, introduced at Meta's annual Connect conference, will hit shelves on Oct. 25 at a price of $1,500 and will offer consumers a way to interact with virtual creations overlaid onto a full-colour view of the physical world around them.

The launch is an important step for Zuckerberg, who last year announced plans for the device - then called Project Cambria - at the same time that he changed his company's name from Facebook to Meta to signal his intention to refocus the social media giant into a company that operates a shared immersive computing experience known as the metaverse.

Zuckerberg has since poured billions of dollars into that vision. Reality Labs, the Meta unit responsible for bringing the metaverse to life, lost $10.2 billion in 2021 and has lost nearly $6 billion so far this year.

Zuckerberg said he hopes the convergence of the physical and digital worlds will lead to new uses for computing.

The Quest Pro features several upgrades over Meta's existing Quest 2 headset, which overwhelmingly dominates the consumer virtual reality market.

Most strikingly, it has outward-facing cameras that capture a sort of 3D Livestream of the physical environment around a wearer, enabling mixed-reality novelties like the ability to hang a virtual painting on a real-world wall or have a virtual ball bounce off a real table.

Meta plans to sell the Quest Pro in consumer channels to start while adding enterprise-level capabilities like mobile device management, authentication and premium support services next year, executives said at the press event.

They said the device is intended to complement rather than replace the entry-level Quest 2, which sells for $399.99.

The Quest Pro's price point puts it well below the cost of existing enterprise-focused devices like Microsoft's Hololens 2, which was released for commercial use in 2019 and is already present in operating rooms and on factory floors. An entry-level Hololens 2 sells for $3,500