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Oculus Quest 2
- butz 6y agoHow do I bypass Facebook login and how do I use it on Linux?
- fsflover 6y agoYou can't: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24201306 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24201306
- SubiculumCode 6y agoof course...right after I bought an oculus quest 1.
- sputknick 6y agoBeen there. But it's still a really good headset. I have one, you'll love it.
- SubiculumCode 6y agoOh im loving it, no doubt.
- MBCook 6y agoBattery doesn’t last as long as the old version (which didn’t exactly have fantastic battery life in the first place). And you’ll soon HAVE to use your FB account with it. Interesting they’ve killed the Rift S. So they’re all in on the Quest.
- shajznnckfke 6y agoI imagine they have done research on how much people care about using it without the power cable plugged in vs. the weight of a larger battery. Even for portable use, it might be better to use an external USB C power pack than have a large battery on your head.
- fomine3 6y agoBalancing weight on front/back of head is important for comfort so possibly mounting battery on a head makes it comfortable, even though more weighty.
- wlesieutre 6y agoThere's an official accessory strap with battery now, if battery is a problem. Helps with balance, I've done a similar setup with a 3D printed bracket and a power bank.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agohttps://www.oculus.com/accessories/quest-2-elite-strap-battery-case/ https://www.oculus.com/accessories/quest-2-elite-strap-batte... where is the battery in this thing??
- wlesieutre 6y agoIt's the curved white chunk on the back
- wlesieutre 6y ago$300 is a pretty big deal for pricing on a VR headset, that feels very different from $400 for wide adoption. Seems like this is also the end of the road for Rift, the Quest 2 is lower cost, more pixels, and they mentioned 90 hz screens for PCVR games over Link. EDIT - review units went out in advance, so 3rd party reviews are already up. Here's one from Tested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x6lux6f_6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x6lux6f_6g
- dylan604 6y agoFacebook will makeup that subsidized $100 on selling the data the glean from the user while using the Quest 2.
- shajznnckfke 6y agoReally though? Facebook makes money by displaying targeted ads to users. What data from the Quest is being used to target ads? I’m not familiar with anything related to this in Facebook’s product for ad buyers, and can’t think of anything particularly useful that they could be doing. You could think of Oculus as an effort to increase the amount of user attention inventory Facebook has in supply to rent out to advertisers. Also, they are positioning themselves as an intermediary for transactions in the future VR economy by being platform owner (a la Apple owning the App Store). My guess is the long-term plan is to make money here by displaying ads in VR and by getting a cut of goods and services sold though VR (see: Ready Player One).
- ianlevesque 6y agoWhat is it with HN and trying to read between the lines so hard? There's literally an Oculus Store app store for quest games. Probably they are just making money on game sales, like every other game console has for 35 years.
- xnx 6y agoI agree that being a game platform would be enough to be profitable, though their biggest dream must be to be the ultimate gatekeeper/taxman to what goes into your eyes. Aside from injecting thoughts right into your brain, what is more important than a screen that blocks out everything else you see? (phone, laptop, and TV are worth zero when you're wearing goggles).
- tehwebguy 6y agoLove my Quest but I basically only play Pavlov Shack, a game that requires sideloading and I am somewhat sure will not come to the official Quest store. Will probably end up selling mine and getting another brand.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agodidn't they say it would come to the store?
- moh_maya 6y agoWe develop industrial training solutions using the rift S and quest. But the deep linking with FB, the battery downgrades on the quest, etc, all are going to push us away. For PC-based training sims, we'll probably get the HTC Vive. And the Pico for the quest equivalent.
- jayd16 6y ago>the battery downgrades I haven't seen anything about this. Only battery news I've seen is they have a new strap system with a battery pack in it.
- Ruthalas 6y agoMy understanding is that the battery is the same, but that the new processor and screen draw more power, therefore resulting in less runtime.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agowhat's the blocker with the FB linking?
- TwoBit 6y agoWhy do care about the Facebook link? You needed an Oculus account previously and a Facebook account now, but there's no forcing of Facebook on you.
- Dahoon 6y agoYou do need a FB account - and a real one at that. If you create a fake one and you get locked out and you can't prove you are that fake person FB will lock you out of the account (and all bought software).
- deskamess 6y agoWill the Oculus account continue to work? Otherwise they are forcing Facebook on me.
- Causality1 6y agoIt's quite ironic that by attempting to force me to use a Facebook account, all they've accomplished is forcing me to exclusively pirate my VR titles.
- cj 6y agoI’m hoping the improved graphics specs and refresh rate help people (like me) who are sensitive to VR motion sickness.
- shafyy 6y agoIt most certainly will
- Monitor2019 6y agoGenuine question - if this was the perfect AR/VR device, would you use it even though it is a FB product? I have real concerns about privacy and the need to log in with FB credentials, but I am also very hopeful for devices that can continue to grow the market and help take it mainstream.
- cyrux004 6y agocreate a new facebook account just for this and dont use it ever ?
- numpad0 6y agoIf you make a Facebook account and tie it to VR goggles, you’re not “not using it ever” but polar opposite of it...
- oefnak 6y agoThey would definitely connect the dots. Same home WiFi, for starters.
- cyrux004 6y agonow that would be an interesting experiment to see how and if they figure that out
- slipheen 6y agoThis also involves agreeing to the Facebook ToS.
- mortenjorck 6y agoOne of two things happens. A) An algorithm flags your newly-created account as "inauthentic" and now you have to submit a copy of your driver's license to Facebook just to use a piece of consumer electronics you bought. B) A different algorithm puts the pieces together and deduces that your burner account is the same identity as the real Facebook account you stopped using years ago or perhaps even "deleted." Nothing escapes the big-data inferences of The Graph.
- d--b 6y agoThere is one thing that will make me buy VR, it's a full field of vision. They say virtual reality, but they sell virtual binoculars...
- Raphmedia 6y agoIt's not that different than regular glasses. Anything that involves lens will require you to look at the middle and rotate your head.
- rhexs 6y agoMy regular glasses don’t block out an additional 30% or more of my vision. I can see fine peripherally, it’s just a bit blurry.
- joemi 6y agoI wonder if that might be a useful next step for FOV in VR... Some additional screen area in the peripheral that's lower res than the main screen area?
- Raphmedia 6y agoPeople have been know to DIY leds around the lenses to help with that. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/how-side-mounted-leds-can-help-fix-vrs-tunnel-vision-and-nausea-problems/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/05/how-side-mounted-leds...
- msikora 6y agoThis seems like an obvious and fairly low cost solution (in terms of both money and CPU). I wonder why this wasn't integrated into commercial headsets yet?
- nuclear_eclipse 6y agoYou'll be interested to look up Foveated Rendering.
- nixass 6y agoMandating to link Facebook account with this VR set screams red flags to me.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- devwastaken 6y agoQuest can't do VR titles. It will always be a niche mobile game market that can't give VR justice. If they would integrate h264 hardware decode and allowed the PC oculus software to stream to it, then we'd be in business. Wireless VR is a big problem right now, it's expensive, doesn't work well, and for it's price you might as well get better hardware. Oculus should ship quest with a cheap little 5Ghz USB broadcaster that you can put into your gaming PC and the oculus software can then stream through. Everyone wants to be able to have no cords and tuck their PC into a corner, not drag it with them.
- ipsum2 6y agoHave you tried the Quest? I've owned many different VR headsets in the past, the Quest is pretty fantastic. "can't do VR titles" is such an exaggeration it doesn't make sense.
- devwastaken 6y agoI develop avatars for the Quest in VRChat. The Quest is using very underwhelming hardware compared to PC, as it can only handle very strict standards, such as 10,000 Polygons to a character. While PC can handle significantly more. As a quest user in vrchat you're significantly limited on your experience because your hardare cannot handle anything more than the bare minimum of avatars. We don't consider it a real VR experience. This is of course very understandable if you know hardware benchmarks. VR is taxing on even the most expensive of PC hardware. Trying to put an Android phone in the same category as an RTX 2070 just isn't possible. VR titles as in Skyrim VR, Half Life: Alyx, Counter Strike, basically anything that's a VR title for PC.
- ipsum2 6y agoAgreed - VRChat is very limited in Quest. But that might be the fault of the app, not the platform. Rec Room works pretty well, basically the same experience on Quest and desktop.
- 6y ago
- rwmj 6y agoCan anyone comment how well the latest VR headsets work for people who wear spectacles?
- ggreer 6y agoI've probably had a dozen people with glasses use my headset. None of them seemed to have any issues with visual quality, though a couple had issues with comfort. The Quest comes with a spacer for glasses. That works fine 90% of the time, but some people's glasses are too big and can hit the lenses in the headset. This can be uncomfortable and (more importantly) it can scratch the lenses in the headset. If you have glasses, I'd recommend getting some lens protectors for the headset. They're usually around $10 and take a minute to apply.
- GekkePrutser 6y agoI use the ALVR rubber ring surrounds. Works well but they smell horrible.
- k__ 6y agoI use a Quest with glasses and works good. There is a special retainer that keeps the headest a bit farther away from your head.
- banana_giraffe 6y agoThere are some companies that make custom lenses for the Quest. I've used one, and it works really well. Of course, that's not for the model being shown here, I'm not sure if it's still an option.
- JonathanFly 6y agoThey work okay, but I recommend looking on Etsy and finding some magnetic lens adapters for about $25 dollars. They click into the headset and then you take the lenses out of of a specific $10 pair of Zenni Optical lenses and stay attached to the headset itself.
- brutus1213 6y agoReally sad that they are getting out of PC based VR. That said, my rift has been sitting in a corner for a year. I was really impressed from a technical perspective and felt the tech showed great promise. Good for HTC I guess.
- TwoBit 6y agoOculus isn't getting out of PC VR. They are converging on a single headset for both PC and standalone VR.
- tomnipotent 6y ago> That said, my rift has been sitting in a corner for a year Same. When "Half-Life: Alyx" was released, I started the motions of setting up my Oculus with the sensor towers, remembered how tedious it was, and promptly put it back. Sounds like the Quest 2 solves all of that.
- jugg1es 6y agoI seriously doubt the Quest 2 will be able to run Alyx. My mid-range PC can't handle it on the Oculus (I think due to some heavy lifting Steam had to do to integrate with the Oculus)
- jon-wood 6y agoOcculus Link allows tethering to a PC via a USB cable, and Virtual Desktop can do SteamVR over WiFi. When I first heard of Virtual Desktop I was dubious, but on a good quality network it’s ridiculously good.
- worldsayshi 6y agoIndeed, I was very sceptical that it would work on my ISP provided wifi-router but it worked flawlessly. Although I've only played Alyx where you probably have some subconscious latency tolerance. It's so strange that they don't package wifi based oculus link as an out of the box feature.
- moron4hire 6y agoI'm really curious to see an engineering presentation on the Quest 2, how it utilizes the XR2 hardware, and what it adds on top. From my understanding, the XR2 is capable of doing all the tracking on its own. The previous gen of hardware was based on the 835, which did not have SLAM on-chip, and thus Oculus' tracking algorithms were the big value-add over the competition. And originally, Oculus was behind the curve on hadware implementations. The Lenovo Mirage Solo was the first 6-DOF headset, a year prior to the Quest, also running the 835. The Vive Focus was in the middle of the two. So, if the XR2 is doing the heavy lifting, it would suggest a big roadblock for competitor devices has been lifted. So how much of the Quest 2 is above and beyond the Qualcomm XR2 VR headset reference design minus Facebook's services integrations?
- bryan_w 6y agoThe quest now has finger tracking which I imagine is still done in SW.
- rainyramen 6y agoI wonder how the FB leadership team thinks about this whole FB/Oculus integration. It is clear that they think adding a "social" component to Oculus is going to help the Quest gain traction. But the question is, why does that "social" component have to be Facebook? With all the negative baggage a FB account carries with it, maybe the easier option would've been to let Oculus build its own social model, à la Play Station Network-style?
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoI have a Quest and I can tell you that for me (and at least for people like me) the real value is in social games/experiences. I have a hard time going through a solo game (although I haven't tried Half Life Alyx yet) but social stuff are amazing! Everyone should try to play settlers of Catan in VR (it was only available on the Go unfortunately) which was insane! At this point I just want more of my friends to get a Quest so that I can hang out with them in VR. I already communicate with these friends via facebook so for me it's natural that this would work out perfectly.
- okramcivokram 6y agoI also have a Quest and I can tell you that for me there was absolutely no value in social stuff.
- istorical 6y agotry PokerStars VR if you haven't, it's a great and free social app.
- ShamelessC 6y ago
- k__ 6y agoDid they say something about the FoV? I have to admit, I would prefer more FoV instead of higher resolution.
- pugworthy 6y agoThere is a trade off though in terms of detail. You're essentially taking a pixelated image and stretching it out more with just a FOV increase. The result for your eyes is essentially increasingly greater simulated myopia.
- k__ 6y agoOkay, but having a bigger display with the same PPI instead of making it the same size, but higher PPI should be perferable here, right?
- bryanlarsen 6y agoThis gets a really poor review from Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/review-we-do-not-recommend-the-299-oculus-quest-2-as-your-next-vr-system/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/review-we-do-not-reco... The downgraded controllers and the awkward IPD adjustment system are the deal breakers for me. From the review: The takeaway: Bullet points for this review A better screen, both in pixel resolution and refresh rate. 90Hz, but when? Facebook isn't clear about higher frame rate support. More powerful wireless-VR hardware, which powers nifty under-the-hood tricks. Less battery life. You'll barely exceed two hours of gaming on a single charge. A cheaper, flimsier headstrap. You can pay more for a nicer one. A baffling change to the "IPD" slider. Only certain skulls need apply. The controllers are the same... but worse. I'm a bit shocked by this one. The F-word. Yeah, we'll get into that.
- rektide 6y agoYou missed the best/worst part! > But Facebook's policies make that "standalone VR" magic harder to recommend this time around. As we've previously reported, Quest 2 requires a Facebook account to function; without one, you cannot run the system's built-in fork of Android, nor can you toggle the system's "developer" mode and sideload VR-optimized Android apps of your choosing. (Speaking of: New rules coming to the Facebook VR developer portal will soon force anyone who wants to sideload apps to either supply a working phone number or a credit card. Yes, that is separate from the FB account requirement.) > Quite frankly, I had designs on testing Oculus Quest 2 with a burner Facebook account. I'd set one up years ago with a spam email address, and Facebook's reps asked me for my Facebook account address before they shipped me the review unit. I gave them my burner profile URL, then went to reset the password. By wrongly typing my new password one time, I was locked out. "Please send us proof of your identity," the site sternly warned me. This is just the start of a long long section of the article on how Facebook will, at the drop of a hat, ban you, remove access to all your purchased software, & how invisible moderators haunt all your VR spaces. All-in on evil, cruddy, awful policies. An affront to general-purpose computing as the world had known & enjoyed it.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoI think that's covered in the reviewer summary line "The F-word. Yeah, we'll get into that. " F-word -> facebook. Subtle, but a great analogy.
- xnx 6y agoI don't know all the tradeoffs involved, but seems like a downgrade to go from the pure black of OLED to the backlight bleedthrough of LCD for a screen so close to the eyes.
- ShamelessC 6y agoGhosting on completely black regions in Half Life Alyx was the only complaint I had with my OLED HMD. I tried an LCD one and my brain was better at ignoring the extra brightness than it was the ghosting.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- karmakaze 6y agoThe Quest has a resolution of 1440 × 1600 per eye. So the 50% more pixels works out to 20% more scan lines (1920) and 27% more pixels/line (1832). 90 Hz has potential perhaps via PC link.
- GekkePrutser 6y agoDon't forget it's an RGB display with 3 subpixels per pixel. Quest 1 was 2 subpixels per pixel (pentile). You'll definitely see much more of an improvement than 27%. Pentile is not bad when the pixels are so small you can't see them. Under a magnifying glass which a VR headset basically is, not so much.
- karmakaze 6y agoI think where pentile went wrong was prioritizing green/red. I believe red has the lowest spatial resolution and should have prioritized green/blue instead. When using Night Shift I notice a definite subjective reduction in spatial resolution.
- haberman 6y agoAs someone who only barely follows VR, what benefits would this have over the upcoming HP Reverb G2 besides price? I was eying the HP Reverb G2 for high resolution, and for its Microsoft Flight Simulator support. EDIT: ah I just found this: https://www.reddit.com/r/HPReverb/comments/it5jvj/hp_reverb_g2_vs_oculus_quest_2/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HPReverb/comments/it5jvj/hp_reverb_...
- bufferoverflow 6y agoIf you're going to ignore 2X the price, why not compare to Pimax 8K?
- haberman 6y agoMaybe I should! I didn't know about the Pimax 8K. Will all of these have access to the same software titles, or are they built on closed or incompatible software ecosystems?
- song 6y agoPimax supports steamVR, same for the HP reverb. You should be able to use Revive to access occulus games on those headsets too.
- numpad0 6y agoMost headset support SteamVR, either natively or through compatibility layers, but not sure about the other way around e.g. MSFS20 on Index. Pimax is SteamVR. e: TIL, WMR as platform do have support for SteamVR headsets https://store.steampowered.com/app/719950/Windows_Mixed_Reality_for_SteamVR/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/719950/Windows_Mixed_Real...
- XCSme 6y agoThe biggest difference is that the Quest is a standalone VR platform (it includes hardware that can also run the games), whereas the majority of VR devices are just display devices (screens, lenses, audio, controllers).
- 6y ago
- syspec 6y ago> We’re going to focus on standalone VR headsets moving forward. We’ll no longer pursue PC-only hardware, with sales of Rift S ending in 2021. That said, the Rift Platform isn’t going anywhere. Well, actually it is isn't it?
- evanextreme 6y agoNot necessarily. Since the Rift S launched and Oculus Link released, Facebook changed the branding of games that require a PC to "Supports Rift Platform" to signify that they can also be played on a tethered Quest. I expect they'll change the name in the future though
- fossuser 6y agoYeah, but as someone who owned the Rift S and then bought a Quest - it turns out there's a rude surprise that all the games you bought for the Rift S have to be bought again for the Quest. The Rift S was a huge mistake, ironically I only bought it because when I asked my friend working at Oculus which one to get he said to get the Rift S (I suspected then they didn't care about it). They should never have shipped it.
- filoleg 6y ago> all the games you bought for the Rift S have to be bought again for the Quest. Wrong on 2 accounts. 1. A lot of games support cross-buy between Rift and Quest versions. 2. For those that don't support cross-buy (or games that only have a Rift version), and you already own them for Rift, you can play them on Quest just fine by connecting it to your desktop either wirelessly (using software like VRDesktop) or using a cable. Just like you were previously able to with Rift (minus the wireless option, iirc it wasn't a thing for Rift). Tl;dr: Quest is a superset of Rift's functionality. You can do everything with Quest that you could do with Rift. Officially supported, without any hacks or workarounds. If you had a game you purchased for Rift, you can play it on Quest just as if you were playing it on Rift without paying anything extra.
- 6y ago
- jugg1es 6y agoI bought a rift S exactly one month ago. Disappointing to hear they are discontinuing it next year.
- pluc 6y agoPretty scathing review on Ars: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/review-we-do-not-recommend-the-299-oculus-quest-2-as-your-next-vr-system/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/review-we-do-not-reco...
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoThe review is wrong about the controllers though
- akhilcacharya 6y agoCan you expound?
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agothey updated the article: > Update, 3:30 p.m. ET: Since this article went live, we've seen infrared camera footage from Tested confirming an identical number of LED bulbs in both generations of Quest controllers
- Dahoon 6y agoHow about the last part of that quote? >"....which puts Facebook's original statement into question. The FB rep may have been describing a downgrade in frequency or power for those LED bulbs in Quest 2 controllers."
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoyup, they obviously don't know what they're talking about...
- rcv 6y agoOr this part > I went back to compare tricky "expert" Beat Saber levels on both Quest 1 and Quest 2, and sure enough, the older controller is noticeably more accurate. It's hard to perfectly measure VR controller detection without access to verbose data logs (which I've used to diagnose issues with SteamVR in the past). But I can safely say that after an hour going back and forth between Quest 1 and 2, the number of lost swipes on the newer hardware was higher. Regardless of whether the new controllers have fewer IR emitters or not, the tracking performance seems to be subjectively worse.
- aaroninsf 6y agoAnyone who buys into the Facebook borg today has blood on their hands. There's no way to sugarcoat it, hand-wave about business units, make puppy dog eyes about such smart well meaning people... The culture and company behavior is fundamentally compromised, irredeemable to all appearances, and is the bedrock of the contemporary severing of a significant number of people not only from the political mainstream, but from consensus reality. It's a shame they bought Oculus. That renders it a non-option.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoit's a very one-sided opinion
- fsflover 6y agoSo what is the opinion of the other side?
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoThat it actually connects friends, and people, across communities and countries?
- fsflover 6y agoThere is no contradiction here. What you say is true, yet FB does terrible things at the same time.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoBut FB is not a "single" person
- fsflover 6y agoYes, it is: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20094034 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20094034
- swalsh 6y agoIt's really great to see VR coming down in price and becoming more accessible... but it's coming at the cost of quality, and it's bringing the rest of VR down with it. As an example, Onward VR recently added support for Quest in its game. The process of doing so required a significant scale down in the quality of graphics, sound, and all kinds of things that were great about the game. Over night the game took a nose dive, and that's not even mentioning the complete community change that came along with it. EDIT: here's a video with examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgxk0ytTyI&feature=emb_title https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVgxk0ytTyI&feature=emb_titl...
- chaostheory 6y agoWhile I primarily use my Vive Index with base stations, I love what the Quest is doing for the VR industry as a whole. While I really like my prosumer VR setup with base stations. It also sucks for the following reasons: 1. Sure, nothing beats it for visual quality and performance, but it is expensive. Minimum $999 AND you need a beefy PC with an equally beefy Nvidia GPU so the real minimum is really around $2499 with PC vs $299 for a Quest 2. That's a $2200 difference. 2. It is a pain to setup. You either have to deal wires and wire control on the ceiling, or if you have a Vive Pro, then you can spend another $299 to install a wireless option bringing the total cost to $2798. Let's not forget the base stations. While nothing beats them for tracking accuracy and the fact that they're the only option for full body tracking, it's yet another pain to set up. You might either drill holes in your walls, or you might buy camera tripods as a pricier alternative $25-$79 each on sale. Of course, once you set it up it's a dream, but the initial hill to climb is high. What Oculus and PSVR are doing is expanding the market for VR and democratizing it so that it's no longer a niche hobby for a select few techies. Also, it is 'Apple'ing' VR. You just plug and play. You don't have to go through a convoluted setup that even some techies will balk at. i.e. I can buy this for my mom as a fitness machine. Facebook and crossplay will also fix the problem of empty multiplayer games. On a side note, I believe Onward devs are working to revert the PC VR Steam graphics. It's also good to note that it's just one game. I will definitely be buying an Oculus Quest 2.
- dummydata 6y ago
- how2draw 6y agoSo, are there any sex games or is this going to be yet another walled kindergarten like we're used to nowadays?
- TwoBit 6y agoOculus has always allowed side-loading third party apps on the PC, which you can connect with Quest.
- Rebelgecko 6y agoThey're restricting this in 2021 to accounts that are willing to share more personal information
- andybak 6y agoSpecifically either a phone number or credit card to enable 2FA. Doesn't the mandatory Facebook account already involve sharing a phone number?
- Rebelgecko 6y agoNo idea. Up until now I've been able to sideload apks without a FB account (although I did have to agree to an extra EULA). I'm doing some soul-searching to decide whether I capitulate to FB or get rid of my current quest (or try to use it with an Oculus account until it gets bricked)
- blensor 6y agoThey actually have a kind of strange app ecosystem at the moment. They have their own very restrictive store which is hard to get into and a thriving sideloading community [1] which allows you to run anything you want and is actually inoficially accepted by FB. It's very easy to list your game there and you can reach ~1Mio Quest users with it. I developed my own full-body fitness game [2] there which would never make it into the official store [1] https://sidequestvr.com https://sidequestvr.com [2] https://vrworkout.at https://vrworkout.at
- legohead 6y ago> Quest 2 requires your Facebook account to login That's a strange barrier to entry. I haven't had a FB in years, and have zero interest in going back, not even for some great hardware.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoThat's quite a light barrier to entry to download online games
- choward 6y agoI disagree completely. I absolutely refuse to have a Facebook account linked to my identity that Facebook uses to spam people asking if they know me.
- _iyig 6y agoJust make a throwaway Facebook account, then. That's what I did for my Quest and it works fine.
- cwhiz 6y agoThey very explicitly said it has to be a “real name” account. Enough to make me question the strategy of a throwaway account. I bet they’re going to match your credit card against your FB profile to see if your account is authentic. At the minimum they’re going to require you to create an account with your real name. The whole thing is sickening to me. Congress should unwind the Oculus purchase ASAP.
- jakear 6y agoLast time I tried to make a throwaway it got flagged pretty quickly and they had me submit photos of myself. I just picked some from the internet and they permanently locked the account. I wouldn’t risk it considering I’d have assets tied to the account (games), which presumably would be lost if their all-powerful neural net were to take as input my account data and output a value higher than some threshold.
- yboris 6y agoI'm an Oculus CV1 owner and I still love it. The next one I'm buying is the HP Reverb G2. The resolution is phenomenal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZvPnd_xTBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZvPnd_xTBs Consider it when you're deciding on a headset.
- t0mbstone 6y agoAny VR headset with a tether is a dealbreaker for me, period.
- Robotbeat 6y agoThis is pretty huge, although bummer with the Facebook deeplinking. Much better resolution for just $300 including the controllers. That's the price of a large monitor.
- msie 6y agoA good video review (Adam Savage's Tested): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x6lux6f_6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x6lux6f_6g
- Thaxll 6y agoI'm going to buy a RTX 3080 and was looking for a cheap VR headset...
- Jemm 6y agoWhat is the FOV?
- mouldysammich 6y agothe whole mandatory facebook thing has made me want to sell my quest. Its a shame, I think its truely the best device out there. I was able to play have life alyx totally wirelessly and enjoy the full experience, and I dont think there is anything close out there to emulate this.
- mrfusion 6y agoI thought half life requires a cable to the pc?
- Rebelgecko 6y agoThere's 3rd party software like OpenALVR (FOSS) and Virtual Desktop ($ but works better IMO) that let you stream PC VR games wirelessly
- worldsayshi 6y agoI'm using Virtual Desktop and it works flawlessly with Alyx. It's so puzzling that you need to enable developer mode and sideload stuff to enable wireless while they allow you to connect with a cable out of the box.
- mrfusion 6y agoIs there a tutorial on how to get alyx running like you describe?
- mouldysammich 6y agoI used ALVR and found it quite easy to get setup with + its FOSS which I prefer https://github.com/JackD83/ALVR https://github.com/JackD83/ALVR is the fork to use, its instructions arent super indepth but I got there its not too hard. And then steam views it like a regular steam vr headset. Its pretty cool.
- worldsayshi 6y ago
- _mkef 6y agoIs anyone making a similar standalone without forced FB ?
- screye 6y agoI worry that Quest-2 will be the death of VR as the next UX frontier. VR tech is still a few years away from being 'seamless'. Historically, such moonshot ideas have only worked when they develop as expensive hobbies for years, until the tech catches up and they can be offered at a reasonable price. Facebook seems to want to skip that step. Give people a half-baked product before it is ready for the market. It is a real shame, because all the tech needed for great VR getting better at a rapid pace in consumer products. Mobile processing, Tiny/curved displays, high refresh rate accommodations, low latency throughout the stack, battery efficiency are all getting better FAST. With a few killer games and apps for VR, we could have had a killer consumer VR headset in 2-3 years. I worry that the Quest 2's half-bakedness will forever ruin the reputation of VR in the eyes of your average person.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y ago> Give people a half-baked product before it is ready for the market. Have you tried it? I have a Quest and it is the future, not a half-baked product at all.
- screye 6y agoI have used all the Windows MR-devices and Vive Pro. It is not terrible, but I don't expect any non-tech savvy person to use it a ton any time soon.
- fomine3 6y agoYou must try Quest. Standalone device provides completely different experience.
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoI really recommend you to try the Quest! I think you're in for a treat :)
- trixie_ 6y ago5 years ago you would of been right.. the entire last decade we've seen the tech maturing - Quest is at least gen 4 has been a smashing success. Quest 2 is a refinement of already mature technology. Not sure where you're getting the impression that the Quest and especially the Quest 2 is 'half baked'
- spdustin 6y agoI'm sure I'm deeply in the minority here, but I still wish PCVR (or a native headset/driver) worked on Mac. My MBP's graphics are beefy enough to handle the sort of games or experiences I'd want to enjoy in VR. I had the DK2 when Mac was still supported, and even my old MacBook Air could drive it well enough to enable some pretty enjoyable experiences from third parties writing for it. The solar system tour in particular was a favorite of mine. Granted, it's not a hardcore gamer-friendly setup, but there was still a lot to enjoy, and even develop for.
- song 6y agoCompletely agreed, I was happy to see steamVR beta for mac but it never progressed beyond a beta and I have to boot to bootcamp every time I want to play VR games. I have an egpu which is more than beefy enough for a good experience but it sucks that I can't actually use it in macos. It does show that if Apple switches to arm, the value proposition will be significantly reduced since I will have to have a separate PC for gaming and testing things on windows.
- chaostheory 6y ago> My MBP's graphics are beefy enough to handle the sort of games or experiences I'd want to enjoy in VR. As a fellow Mac user, I highly doubt it's the case anymore unless you're going to limit yourself to Beat Saber. 1. Most games are not optimized for the Mac to put it lightly. 2. Mobile GPUs just don't cut it when you're running VR and displaying on 2-3 screens at once You really don't have a choice but to either go with Facebook or Steam PC for VR, for now at least. Who knows when Apple will risk it with another potential paradigm shift, but if they're still going with the 'just glasses' Jony Ive route, it will be years.
- dangoor 6y ago> 2. Mobile GPUs just don't cut it when you're running VR and displaying on 2-3 screens at once The Oculus Quest has been doing VR acceptably on mobile _phone_ GPUs for 15 months. A recent Mac laptop's GPU should be able to handle at least as good an experience as the Quest.
- tus88 6y agoMore like 3D TVs "2".
- shoulderfake 6y agoBut I need a facebook account to use one of these dont I ?
- ccktlmazeltov 6y agoyou need an online account to download the games on the app store yes
- anon776 6y agoCan I watch netflix in bed with this?
- MikusR 6y agoYes
- alkonaut 6y agoI’m happy to be locked to a store when I use it as a gadget, but when I use it as a PC VR headset, am I really stuck with Oculus store still? Why can’t any title from Steam or wherever work?
- tinyhouse 6y agoI'm thinking of pre-ordering it for my family. I'm not going to use my personal FB account for this. I'm assuming one can open a new FB account just for this, right? Also, is it worth getting the 256GB for extra $100? Never had a VR device and not sure how many games/apps you can have on 64G.
- utopcell 6y agoI don't think you can have a FB account that is not linked to a real name.
- searchableguy 6y agoThey regularly flag people and ask them for passport or other national IDs to verify. If you make any purchases on the store, you have a chance to lose either your ID or brought items.
- hrktb 6y agoarstechnica's review [0] isn't thrilled with this version though. The part that hits me the most is the adjustment of pupil distance, which has a significant impact on the experience if not adapted to the wearer. [0] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/review-we-do-not-recommend-the-299-oculus-quest-2-as-your-next-vr-system/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/review-we-do-not-reco...
- tinyhouse 6y agoThanks everyone! I see xbox and playstation are also releasing new consoles this year. Now I'm wondering maybe a new PS be a better return on investment.
- exclusiv 6y agoFrom what I read, the 64 GB should be sufficient for most - about 40 apps/games. I preordered the 64gb and got the extended battery (going to try coding on immersedvr.com), although it looks like you may be better off with an external battery pack and just the elite strap. Having extra power built in is more convenient but it is $80 more than the base elite headset. I could probably power it all day with my Omnicharge pack.
- scotty79 6y agoI've planned to buy Valve index and this announcement gave me a pause. But ultimately I'll be sticking with Index for 120hz refresh rate (vs 90hz of Quest 2)
- chaostheory 6y agoThe only thing strange on the VR front is I don't understand why Facebook isn't promoting the fitness aspect of VR? I've already lost 20lbs just from playing video games. It would definitely siphon some people away from peleton like products if they did a marketing push in this direction. It would be great if there was a central VR game hub that kept track of fitness. I know YUR exists, but adoption isn't widespread because it's not built into the platform.
- maxton 6y agoIn the keynote today, they did explicitly mention new fitness features like calorie tracking with what they’re calling “Oculus Move”. There’s a link to an article about it at the end of this blog post: https://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-quest-platform-updates-oculus-link-exits-beta-introducing-oculus-move-and-more/ https://www.oculus.com/blog/oculus-quest-platform-updates-oc...
- chaostheory 6y agoFinally! Thank you for pointing it out
- zmmmmm 6y agoYep, I think fitness is actually the hidden "killer app" for VR. As in, it's not the thing I will rave about to my friends or what blows me away with how exciting or fun it is, but it has locked in as an essential part of my life for an hour+ a day, and it easily more than pays for itself.
- trilinearnz 6y agoReally like the idea of not having to have a beefy PC off to the side. I'm an enthusiast, but also have a job, so the prospect of having to sort this aspect out represented a barrier to entry I wasn't willing to address. On the negative side, the look of the device is still pretty "uncool". I think some lessons there could be learned from the PS4 VR.
- mark_l_watson 6y agoI was surprised that it was $100 less expensive than the Quest I bought last year. I ordered a Quest 2. I have always enjoyed writing game software more than playing games. The Quest changed that, I use it every day. (I worked on VR at SAIC, games for Nintendo, and VR for Disney.) I think FB priced this for huge adoption. I have totally loved the Star Wars Vader Immortal trilogy so I can’t wait for the Star Wars game. Other favorites are ping pong, racket ball, and some of the 3D art people post.
- theptip 6y agoGetting torn to shreds in the Ars Technica review: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/review-we-do-not-recommend-the-299-oculus-quest-2-as-your-next-vr-system/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/review-we-do-not-reco... Even excluding the hard requirement on a Facebook account it seems there were a lot of compromises made to get the price down.
- Jonanin 6y agoThere is something odd about this Ars review. It’s not the normal high quality review I expect from them. There is a lot of subjectivity and plain wrong things stated (like less IR sensors in the controller). The only legit criticisms I picked up are the IPD adjustment and the FB requirement.
- theptip 6y agoPlus the worse head strap and subjectively worse controller responsivity, though seems like some confusion on what is actually different vs. the gen 1 controllers. If it’s a lower refresh rate and Beat Saber plays worse, that’s a big deal. As you say it’s a subjective analysis so I’ll be looking for others to corroborate or clarify that point.
- ilaksh 6y agoI asked Norm from Tested in his post-review AMA today if he also felt the tracking was worse in the Quest 2 and he said he did not feel that way. In the AMA he also said that the refresh rate was the same but had the option to go to 90 hz if developers programmer for it and the option was on.
- knodi123 6y agoThey clarified the IR thing was something they were told, but which they later tested and found not to be the case. /shrug
- rubicon33 6y agoThis review strikes me as weirdly biased. There's a TON to love about this headset. And the price point is simply amazing. Feels to me like the author had an axe to grind.
- sexpositivepriv 6y agoNot going to buy a device run by the most abusive spying company to watch porn on.
- brian_herman 6y agoI am not sure if VR is really ready for prime time I have owned a cv1 and a oculus rift dev kit and after around a month I stop using it. it was fun playing games like eve railjack and fps but it doesn’t seem to grab me. VR still needs a killer app.
- zmmmmm 6y agoYou sound like someone who might change their opinion if you tried the Quest. Standalone and tether-free just makes a world of difference to how you perceive it. I use it intensively for exercise and that is pretty much a killer app for me.
- mlindner 6y agoAvoid avoid avoid. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/review-we-do-not-recommend-the-299-oculus-quest-2-as-your-next-vr-system/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/review-we-do-not-reco...
- ifmpx 6y agoThe specs are really good for the price and clean design is aesthetically pleasing, but I won't be able to enjoy it knowing that facebook is behind it. I can wait for their competitors to catch up :)
- coding123 6y agoPrice is too high, which has nothing to do with money. requires facebook login.
- tfigment 6y agoWhile I agree, is this really a new thing? I had a dev kit for oculus rift and sometime after Facebook acquired when they stopped DX 9 support I couldn't use the device after update and drivers where reaching out to Facebook endpoints. I have that domain block and the device stopped working if it could not talk to fb. I think it was slightly more than that but I gave up on it and uninstalled it since I trust fb not at all. Felt bad throwing out that money but without controller it wasn't that useful.
- cwhiz 6y agoPlease, anyone, desperately anyone, literally anyone, please, for the love of god, make a competing headset that doesn’t have this deep Facebook integration bullshit. I do not want to see this become the Oasis.
- tomc1985 6y agoWhat about Valve Index?
- msie 6y agoDon’t bet on Valve. They don’t have a killer business instinct. They take their sweet time to get anything done. Plus their Steam machine “console” idea was crap, anyone could see that from day one.
- rektide 6y agoIt's amazing how shortsighted & wrong one smarmy glib post can be. Valve is kicking ass, leading massive technical charged doing great & fantastic work with none of the typical Service-as-a-Software-Substitute slimeware that everyone else keeps falling to. Great novel hardware with very high bandwidth & compelling input, best if not only useful end user drivers out there as we see with projects like Monado XR that are practically unimaginable elsewhere. You're damned right they don't have a killer business instinct. They have a nurture protect & help instinct. They aren't on inside-out tracking, not yet, they are building far more reliable open systems for outside-in, & that makes them more costly. But you know what you are getting & you know the raw data right out of the sensor is going to be great.
- na85 6y agoThat's an interesting take. I don't follow the VR market at all, but from my perspective Valve has been resting on their laurels for years. I've read that gaben just sits in his office playing DOTA 2 all day. Until I read your comment I would never have considered describing Valve as "kicking ass". From where I sit they've basically done nothing innovative since Half Life 2.
- ekianjo 6y ago> Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ XR2 Platform offering higher AI capability Now, having a CPU is considered AI?
- ekianjo 6y agoI love how they show people in the pictures who are in wide empty places with just a single tree behind and no furniture and nothing on the floor. Is this some kind of alien landscape?
- kbenson 6y agoAnd still no support for multiple profiles on one device. The opposite, actually, since you have to link your FB profile. I get it Facebook, you want me to buy one for each of my kids. That's not going to happen, so all you're doing is annoying me. :/
- whywhywhywhy 6y agoI still don't understand why Facebook management has allowed Instagram and WhatsApp to exist where they pretend your account is a separate entity to Facebook and just makes do with having it linked via shadow profile. Yet with Oculus they're being so hard and forcing it into the FB infrastructure at the most critical point in it's lifespan. Most tech critics of it are all perfectly happy using Instagram, I just don't understand why Oculus accounts couldn't have just remained the same as that other than some executive being judged by some poorly thought out metrics and using this to meet them.
- polskibus 6y agoI wonder about the CPU&GPU performance of Quest 2. The biggest pain point of Quest 1 was low detail in the scenes in supported games, mainly due to low spec. I know it's a compromise when you are not hooked with a cable to a PC, but I wish they could use Apple's fastest ARM CPUs :)
- wensley 6y agoIs is possible to quickly buy a quest 1 this month and be able to use an Occulus account?
- Timpy 6y agoIs it possible to use a VR headset as a daily-driver desktop environment? I'm interested in programming inside a VR desktop; not programming for VR, but putting on a VR headset and writing code in a text editor inside a VR environment. This is too nuanced for a search engine to return any meaningful results. I was never that interested in VR until this idea occurred to me, so I don't know if the technology is there yet. Surely somebody must have tried this already?
- devWithABlast 6y agoI have tried but not with the oculus yet. You have two methods: either you remote VR into your desktop (Using tools such as Virtual Desktop), either you host an IDE in a browser and then just use your browser (VSCode you can host using coder.com self hosted). My opinions are: It gets uncomfortable fairly quickly, I didn't want to use it more than an hour. The DPI is much lower than my 2K desktop monitor. It gets hot under the VR headset. In most conditions I prefer a Desktop or even a laptop. I think one place where it might be cool is the airplane since even laptops are uncomfortable.