The biggest Oculus Quest 2 update is here.
There is a new activity tracker called Oculus Move and I tried it and I like it, 90Hz is
finally here, Oculus Link now has easy graphics settings, and there are many other smaller
but handy things you should know that will most likely make your VR experience better.
I’ll share everything that’s changed and give you tips.
Hello!
Cas here, and I welcome you to another VR TECH TIPS video.
Many of these updates are rolling out gradually, so it may be that you don’t have all these
updates yet or only several of them.
However, it should come to you in the upcoming weeks.
There’s a lot to cover, so we’re going to get right started.
But first, if you like to see more videos like this one, subscribe
if you haven’t yet.
And now, join me beyond reality.
So these updates we’re going to talk about today will only be available on version 23
and up.
So to check if you got these updates already, you need to check your version.
This can be done in-VR in the menu, by going to settings > then about > here, look at the
software version.
If this says 23 or higher, then you’re good to go.
If not, you can check up here if the button is clickable, if so, you can update it with
that.
If not, you need to wait until Oculus pushes the update to you, but it may take a few days.
There’s also the option to manually push it by using adb, if you really want it right
now.
There are videos online already on how to do this, so I won’t dive into it now unless
you all want me to make one, of course.
Let me know in the comments.
Ok, so first we got Oculus Move, which is a new built-in activity tracker.
It helps track the calories you burn and how long you’ve been physically active across
any game or app in VR.
In the settings, you can choose to use an overlay.
This can be at the top or bottom, and it only appears when you look at it.
Of course, you can also turn this completely off for no distractions at all, and check
the Oculus Move app itself for a nice summary and some nice graphs.
In here, you can also set goals for yourself and track your progress over time.
If you fill out your information, like age, height, and weight, it can calculate your
calories more accurately, but Facebook says filling this out is optional.
They also claim that this information is only stored on your device and will only be used
to predict calories burned.
So it’s up to you.
I tried it out with Beat Saber and I really like it so far.
So I hope to see more features added eventually, like connecting a heart monitor for more accurate
calorie estimates, for example.
But as you may know, I’m a big advocate for working out in VR as I think it’s much
more motivating than going to the gym, and I think more people feel the same way.
So great steps to get people to exercise more.
I recommend checking out Until You Fall or Pistol Whip with Oculus Move if you haven’t
yet.
Oculus Move is a free Oculus app that you can find under your app’s library.
You can sort your apps by clicking this drop down menu and selecting Oculus apps.
If you don’t see it there yet, then it means it hasn’t rolled out to you yet.
Oculus will make it available to everyone in the coming months.
This mega update also brings the 90Hz mode that everyone was waiting for.
This means you do not need to turn on a toggle in the settings anymore for you to experience
90Hz and it also finally opens up this mode for developers.
This means, in the upcoming days and probably weeks, we’ll see many games updates and
then you’ll finally be able to play them much smoother without having to do anything
else.
Not only is this activated now, but Oculus also made software enhancements to reduce
latency.
It all just looks a little better.
It seems to me that the motion blur that I had before, is also a bit better.
There’s also updates to Voice Commands.
If you haven’t yet, you can enable Voice Commands by selecting this icon in the Quick
Actions Menu.
What’s added in Voice Dictation is automatic punctuation, so you don’t have to say comma
or period anymore manually.
And this feature is now also integrated within the Oculus search bar, so you can just use
your voice to search for something instead of that slow VR typing.
If you didn’t know yet, your voice activity is stored in your headset, which in this update,
you can now access, so you can view, hear, and delete your voice interactions.
You can do this in the Oculus app on your phone as well.
This is great, except I have never been able to use it because it’s not available in
my country.
For now, you can only use Voice Commands in the US and Canada…
I’m a little bit jealous.
Then a few Quality Of Life changes have been added too like in your Oculus Quest headset,
if you open Settings > Device > and then look here at Text Size, you can now adjust the
font size for the text that appears in your headset.
Great news for accessibility.
You can also move the keyboard and menu bar to a more optimal position for your situation.
This is truly a quality of life change as so many times; I had something blocking my
menu, like my desk or my cat.
Last quality of life change is you can now do more tasks without having to exit the current
game or app you’re in.
Things like sending friend requests, sharing media, making in-app purchases and more.
This feature does depend on developers implementing it to their apps, so I do hope more devs will
do that.
There’s also a new feature for casting.
You can now cast to Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, just by going to oculus.com/casting.
You’ll need to login with Facebook, then you can start casting in-VR by going to the
sharing tab, then cast and select your computer.
If you don’t see your computer, you have to make sure your Quest headset is on the
same internet network as your computer.
And then well, maybe this could make live streaming or capturing gameplay easier too.
But it will especially much more easier to show it to friends if you have a PC lying
around somewhere and if the lag isn’t too bad, of course.
Now, even Browser got an update.
And this looks like an update for Facebook’s Infinite Office concept as it’s an update
for productivity.
In Browser, you can now upload and download files to and from your headset, this means,
you can upload a video to YouTube, download photos from Dropbox, or share files via Google
Docs.
Once you download something, it’ll be saved in your Quest, which you can access by connecting
it to a PC and going into the Quest 2 > Internal Shared Storage > Download folder.
For now, it’s not super handy yet, but this does open up possibilities for developers
to add importing features or maybe Oculus will open this up to the social chat, so that
you can send screenshots to your friends later on.
So, there are even more changes, but these may be a little less interesting for existing
owners.
Like new tutorials for when new users enter VR for the first time.
But also if you come from Quest 1 or getting another Quest 2, you can automatically download
your previously installed apps on your new device more easily.
On the Oculus mobile app, there’s also a small update; you can now can now seamlessly
launch app content, like an event or challenge.
By clicking on it, you can save that and jump right in when you put on your headset.
Then, two big updates that are not exactly about the standalone headset, but are things
we have been waiting for.
Coming later this month is App Gifting.
This means that when this rolls out, you can finally purchase games and apps and send them
to your friends, if you’re feeling generous.
The flow will look like this, using the Oculus phone app, when you navigate to a game, you
can tap the ‘dots’ menu and here you can select buy for a friend.
You need their Oculus account email address, then you can add a little message, buy the
game, and then send it over.
This is especially great, especially now with the holidays coming up and more and more people
trying to convince their friends to get into VR.
Guilty.
When this is out, I’ll make sure to gift one of you something.
So keep an eye on this channel.
Last, but certainly not least, Oculus Link has moved out of beta.
Sooner than I thought it would be.
So, we also get graphical settings that are easier to use.
Previously, you had to do some Oculus Debug Tool stuff to crank up the visuals, it was
a little complicated, but now Oculus made it easier by putting these options directly
into the PC version of Oculus Home.
Here, at Devices > then your Oculus Quest > you can set the refresh rate to 72, 80,
and 90hz.
And here, you can also adjust your render resolution for better visuals.
To set the Render Resolution, you can choose for the software to do this automatically
for you, or if you switch this off, you can use the slider and set it manually.
Keep in mind, though, you’ll need a good USB-3 cable for this to work correctly, and
if you set the render resolution too high than your GPU can handle, then you will get
performance drops.
So if something isn’t running smoothly, make sure to set these settings lower.
I actually think most GPUs will not be able to handle the highest render resolution here,
but hey, at least we got the option.
By the way, if you don’t have these options in your software yet, then you can also opt-in
to the beta channel in ‘Settings’ > then ‘Beta’ and switching on the ‘Public
Test Channel’.
It’ll start downloading the beta update, and once done, you can install it.
If you are already in the beta and on software version 23 and still don’t see anything.
This actually happened to me, then what you can do is switching the ‘Public Test Channel’
off, let it update.
Then switch it on again, then let is update again.
And then the settings should appear.
This is what worked for me.
I love it.
This update has been the biggest one so far and it tells how much Facebook is still invested
in VR so I think our VR experiences will only get better.
What is your favorite change and why?
Let me know in the comments below.
Thanks for watching and if you got some time left, please do watch more videos to support
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As always, VR on!