Meta Horizon OS v81 PTC overhauls Quest’s VR residence system, changing all earlier environments with a high-quality loft with free locomotion.
What Is the Public Check Channel (PTC)?
The Public Check Channel (PTC) is Meta Quest’s beta launch channel. When you decide in, your headset receives a pre-release construct of every Quest system software program, now technically known as Horizon OS, model.
Be aware that there are sometimes options within the eventual secure model not current within the PTC, and infrequently (however very not often) options or modifications within the PTC do not make it to the secure model.
Over the previous few hours, some testers have began receiving v81 PTC on their Quest headsets and posting their display screen recordings to X, exhibiting the brand new Immersive Residence in motion.
Immersive Residence Overhaul
Horizon OS v81 PTC replaces each legacy VR residence atmosphere with a brand new system known as Immersive Residence.
Quest 3’s legacy residence environments have been criticized for having considerably decrease visible high quality than Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional’s, and even Pico 4 Extremely’s, giving new headset house owners a poor impression of the standard of VR that even cellular chipsets are able to.
Horizon OS v81 PTC will get rid of all of them.
Horizon v81 footage from VR fanatic Nori.
The brand new residence, referred to in some elements of the OS as ‘Loft’, and elsewhere simply ‘Immersive Residence’, is a single core atmosphere with 4 background surroundings choices: Horizon Central, Midnight, Valley, and Oceanarium.
In response to the testers that v81 PTC has rolled out to, together with Nori and Luna, the brand new house is visually a lot greater high quality than the legacy houses. And as might be seen within the display screen recordings, its lighting modifications based mostly on the background surroundings you choose.
Horizon v81 footage from VR fanatic Nori.
Whereas you may solely teleport to pre-determined positions in legacy houses, you may freely both teleport or slide across the new residence. Additional, Meta appears to have unified the house and Horizon Worlds locomotion settings right into a system-level World Motion settings tab.
Some Quest builders and lovers have been requesting a system-level locomotion settings system for years now, which that they had hoped third-party apps would be capable of learn by way of an API. It is unclear whether or not this would be the case for the World Motion settings.
The brand new residence permits you to pin 2D home windows to its digital partitions by merely dragging and releasing them close to a wall – they’ll then snap on.
There’s additionally a brand new Instagram Window residence ‘object’ that you may allow, a big digital picture body on one of many new residence’s partitions, which shows photographs and movies from Instagram, in the identical artificial 3D as the principle Horizon OS app. That is the third ‘object’ obtainable, after the Avatar Mirror and Horizon Central Portal.
Horizon OS v81 footage from Luna. Be aware that the lag is because of working on Quest Professional.
Pin Home windows In Passthrough
Window pinning works barely in a different way in passthrough, Quest 3’s default residence view.
As an alternative of pinning home windows to bodily partitions, Meta says in passthrough you pin home windows in mid-air, by deciding on a brand new ‘Pin’ possibility on the window’s toolbar. This implies the window ought to persist on this real-world place everytime you’re in passthrough mode.
Meta has up to date the documentation for panels on Horizon OS, exhibiting the brand new Management Bar and confirming that “Observe Me” and “Pin to Area” shall be choices sooner or later. https://t.co/4OvEJncQtL pic.twitter.com/P1GB9x30dY
— Luna (@Lunayian) December 15, 2024
VR fanatic Luna found references to the ‘Pin’ possibility within the code of Horizon OS over a yr in the past, and even found Meta documentation mentioning the function way back to December.
Nori and Luna say they do not but see this within the present construct of Horizon OS v81, however Meta says will probably be coming.
‘Navigator’ System UI Now Elective
The Horizon OS UI overhaul, known as Navigator, began its preliminary rollout with Horizon OS v77 in late Could, and stays solely obtainable to a subset of Quest headset house owners as a part of a really gradual rollout.
Quest v77 Assessments System UI Overhaul & Turning Instagram Images 3D
Meta is rolling out the Horizon OS interface overhaul to some Quest house owners on the PTC, and can deliver it to everybody “over the approaching months”.
Navigator strikes the principle system interfaces like Library, Fast Controls, Notifications and Digital camera into a brand new giant overlay that seems over each immersive and 2D apps, a significant enchancment from the earlier method of those being in panels which are handled like every other 2D app. It means system interfaces will now not shift round when opening different home windows, and makes it simpler to launch new apps. Navigator’s library additionally lets you pin as much as 10 objects, considerably akin to the beginning menu on Home windows.
When Navigator first launched it had a murky purple-grey background with an oval form, however this was quickly eliminated.
After One Key Change, Meta’s Quest UI Overhaul Has Gone From Dangerous To Nice
The Quest system UI overhaul launched to testers in Could, with key enhancements however an unpleasant semi-opaque gray “cloud” background. Now, Meta has gotten rid of it.
With v81 PTC, Meta says it is reverting to creating the previous Common Menu UI the default for most individuals “to maintain issues easy and acquainted”.
“Whereas we proceed to experiment and enhance Navigator, it’s nonetheless obtainable”, Meta notes. You may allow it within the Superior settings.
This means Meta feels Navigator is not but prepared to switch the standard Quest UI, and should even trace on the firm re-evaluating its VR/MR interface technique.
Meta says Horizon OS v81 PTC additionally improves Meta AI on Quest, making it “extra correct and higher capable of guess what you need it to do”.
For instance, while you say “It’s too loud”, Meta AI will flip down the quantity, and you may ask it to “return” should you favor the earlier quantity.
Meta AI can also be higher at setting up browser URLs, so you may ask it to open particular pages on web sites, like “seek for AA batteries on Amazon”, or “open the imdb web page for Chris Hemsworth”.
Meta AI Is Coming To Quest Headsets In The US & Canada
Meta AI is coming to Quest headsets within the US & Canada in August, and it might probably reply questions on what you’re on Quest 3.
Whereas Meta AI is offered on Ray-Ban Meta in all 18 international locations the place the glasses are bought, on Quest it nonetheless seems to be solely obtainable within the US & Canada.
