Facebook is rolling out the v30 update for Oculus Quest owners bringing with it some major updates to how voice chat is handled and adding multitasking with 2D apps in Oculus Home.
Once v30 is available to everyone (the roll out typically takes a few weeks) Facebook will enable a toggle that will allow players to swap voice chat between your party and the app you’re in at the time. That’s a very big deal because it’s been an absolute nightmare to manage audio chat on Oculus headsets for years now. Facebook says the toggle will be available in the universal menu with the feature working in any app.
In addition, the new update will “let you run multiple 2D apps side-by-side in Oculus Home, including Explore, Store, Browser, Events, Oculus TV, Oculus Move, Scoreboards, and more. Once you have the v30 update, look for the Multitasking toggle in the Experimental Features section of your Settings panel, flip it to on, and then restart your headset. From there, you can drag 2D apps from your Universal Menu bar or Apps library and drop them into one of three positions so you can manage multiple tasks seamlessly,” according to Facebook.
We’ve been able to get an Android app running on Oculus Quest and we’ve seen reports that Facebook may be testing more robust support for 2D-based Android apps within VR. So we’re extremely curious to see how Facebook builds on this feature as it could be absolutely key to giving people more reasons to use VR headsets for longer periods of time.
The update also includes some new accessibility features, with a new tab in the settings menu and tools to change things like the default text size and the ability to tweak colors. The update also enables players to “Raise View” to “experience VR from a ‘standing’ vantage point even while physically seated,” according to Facebook. The experimental feature raises “your viewing height by 16 inches (0.4 meters) in supported apps.”
The v30 update also enables the Oculus Air Link wireless PC VR connection for original Quest owners.
