The AR and VR headsets you’ll actually wear

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 54, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you're new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) 

This week, I've been reading about AI slop and sports betting and Jony Ive, clearing my schedule for the new season of The Great British Bake Off, watching Sicario and Pirates of the Caribbean and A Quiet Place: Day One on plane-seat screens like their directors intended, insta-subscribing to Hasan Minhaj's new YouTube show, and just relentlessly trolling people with Vergecast clips through Pocket Casts' new feature. 

I also have for you a couple of new Meta gadgets, the mobile game that will eat up all your free time, a couple of hotly anticipated new movies, the best Spotify feature in forever, and much more. So much going on! Let's dig in.

(As always, the best part of Installer is your ideas and tips. What are you into right now? What should everyone else be reading / watching / playing / trying / building out of clay this week? Tell me everything: installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoy Installer, tell them to subscribe here.)

The Drop

Meta's Quest 3S. My biggest issues with the Quest 3 were the price and the passthrough, and this new model appears to have solved both. It's back in "totally reasonable game console" range, and the passthrough demos looked much sharper than before. They look great, though not as good as…The limited-edition Ray-Ban Meta Wayfarer. I already own two pairs of Meta's smart glasses (don't ask), but I am still lusting over this clear pair. They're more expensive, and they actually undo some of the good non-gadget vibes of the other models, but they look so good.  Balatro Mobile. This might be the most recommended thing in the history of Installer - I swear, every week someone tells me how much this poker roguelike has taken over their life. And now it's on your phone! $10, no data collected, no microtransactions, my screen time is about to go through the roof.Wolfs. This Clooney-Pitt Apple TV Plus movie has a fascinating backstory that says a lot about the future of Hollywood, but I also just love a big-budget flick in which movie stars say cool lines in cool ways. This appears to be exactly that.The new Roku Ultra. I helped review the Google TV Streamer this week, and I really love that thing. But I'm also psyched to see Roku keep pushing - the new one's not reinventing the wheel, but it's faster and better, and that is a very good thing.The Wild Robot. I'd really like to tell you to go see Megalopolis this weekend, but every single indication is that the movie is hot garbage. But people seem thrilled about this one, an animated flick about a stranded robot that sounds adorable and delightful and like something I'm going to end up watching 100 times.The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. A Zelda game… in which you get to play as Zelda. That's the dream! This game doesn't seem to be as big or awe-inspiring or platform-defining as Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, but it sounds clever and fun just the same.Spotify's AI Playlist feature. This is terrible news for my relentless quest to quit Spotify: the AI playlists are great. Now that the feature is available in the US, I've been using it to name a few bands or songs, plus an overall vibe, and it picks a few dozen songs that, at least so far, always seem to hit. Spotify is very, very good at this part of the music game.Social Studies. Being a kid is hard work. And this doc digs in with a group of students on how much… maybe not always harder, but definitely more complicated, social media has made being a kid in 2024. This comes from a good team, too, and I'm excited about it.The Nothing Ear Open. Nothing's headphones have been really solid, and as a recent and aggressive convert to open earbuds, I'm pumped to see how these sound. They look so cool, too! Big week for clear gadgets.