Oculus CTO John Carmack says a local viewing feature is working for the Oculus Go but it is still several weeks away from being released to owners of the headset.
The feature should fill a major gap in Oculus Go functionality and allow friends and family to see the view from inside VR. The standalone Oculus Go started shipping in May for $200 and, since then, the headset has used a companion iPhone and Android app that makes setup easier. That app could do a lot more if it gets updated with this new feature.
It is working, but that still puts it several weeks out for users.
— John Carmack (@ID_AA_Carmack) August 22, 2018
The more expensive Mirage Solo, running Google’s Daydream OS, is able to broadcast its view to a nearby Chromecast-enabled device in a seamless way. With Oculus Go, it can be hard to share the headset when you can’t see what the person in VR sees to help them if they get stuck. An update to the Oculus Go iPhone and Android apps could change that and make sharing the entry level VR headset easier.
Carmack’s tweets seem to suggest the update could arrive sometime around Oculus Connect 5 in late September. If not, I’d at least expect a formal update at the event. Keep in mind also that Apple rejects apps from time to time for a variety of reasons, recently rejecting Valve’s SteamLink app for example. It is highly unlikely that such a major feature update — to an app that’s already approved — would be stopped by Apple’s approval process, but it is a possibility worth noting nonetheless.
Oculus Connect 5 will be held in San Jose, California on Sept. 26 and 27.
