Quest’s Horizon OS v81 is rolling out now, bringing the Horizon Engine Immersive House, persistent window anchoring, QuickPlay, and extra.
A check model of v81 began rolling out to the Horizon OS Public Take a look at Channel (PTC) in late August, and now six weeks later it is rolling out for all supported Quest headsets.
Quest v81 PTC Utterly Overhauls Your VR House
Meta Horizon OS v81 PTC overhauls Quest’s VR residence system, changing all earlier environments with a high-quality loft with free locomotion.
Meta’s rollouts occur regularly, so it could take just a few days and even weeks to your headset to get the v81 replace. Additional, Meta rolls out some options individually from the principle replace itself, so even having the v81 replace would not assure having every little thing listed right here but.
Learn on for a rundown of the important thing modifications Horizon OS v81 brings in comparison with v79, the earlier steady launch.
Immersive House
Horizon OS v81 replaces each legacy VR residence atmosphere with a brand new Immersive House, powered by Meta’s new Horizon Engine.
Quest 3’s legacy residence environments had 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 homeowners a poor impression of the standard of VR that even cellular chipsets are able to. Horizon OS v81 will get rid of all of them.
The brand new Immersive House is a singular core atmosphere with 4 background surroundings choices: Horizon Central, Midnight, Valley, and Oceanarium. You possibly can carry up the surroundings settings by urgent the left Contact controller’s menu button.
Footage by UploadVR displaying Immersive House.
The brand new house is visually larger high quality than the legacy houses, and its lighting modifications primarily based on the background surroundings you choose.
Whereas you possibly can solely teleport to pre-determined positions in legacy houses, you possibly can freely both teleport or slide across the new residence. And you’ll teleport right into a seated place on the digital seats.
Footage by UploadVR displaying World Motion settings.
Additional, Meta has unified the house and Horizon Worlds locomotion settings right into a system-level World Motion tab in Settings.
Some Quest builders and fanatics 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. However presently it isn’t potential for third-party apps to learn the brand new Horizon OS World Motion settings.
Footage by UploadVR displaying Instagram object.
Immersive House additionally has a brand new Instagram Window residence ‘object’ that you could allow, a big digital photograph body on the brand new residence’s wall, 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, which have been ported from the legacy houses to Immersive House.
2D Window Anchoring
Horizon OS v81 allows you to persistently pin 2D home windows in your house area, each in passthrough and Immersive House, by deciding on a brand new ‘Anchor’ choice on a window’s toolbar.
Anchored home windows are seen when you’re not in a VR/MR app or world, and once you return from being in a single, and even reboot your headset, your anchored home windows must be the place you left them.
Footage captured by UploadVR, displaying how anchored home windows persist.
Your anchored passthrough residence home windows are separate out of your anchored Immersive House home windows. You possibly can anchor three in every modality, for a complete of six. However you may solely ever see three anchored home windows at a time.
An attention-grabbing sprucing contact: in Immersive House, when positioning anchored home windows they will collide with digital geometry, making it simple to connect a window to the wall of your private home.
QuickPlay For Retailer Apps
Beginning with v81, Meta says it is regularly rolling out a brand new characteristic known as QuickPlay, which lets Quest 3 and 3S customers launch Horizon Retailer apps earlier than they’re absolutely downloaded.
This normal idea is broadly obtainable on many app shops, together with PlayStation, Xbox, Apple’s App Retailer, Google Play, and Battle.internet. However in all these circumstances it requires developer implementation, whereas Meta says its answer is absolutely automated, with property prioritized “by crowdsourced profiling”.
In line with Meta, QuickPlay can scale back the time from shopping for a VR recreation to taking part in it by as much as 50%.
‘Navigator’ System UI Now PTC-Solely?
The Horizon OS UI overhaul, known as Navigator, began its “gradual” rollout with Horizon OS v77 in late Might, changing the previous system known as Common Menu.
After One Key Change, Meta’s Quest UI Overhaul Has Gone From Dangerous To Nice
The Quest system UI overhaul launched to testers in Might, with key enhancements however an unsightly semi-opaque gray “cloud” background. Now, Meta has gotten rid of it.
However within the launch notes for v81 PTC, Meta stated it is reverting to creating Common Menu the default Horizon OS UI for “most individuals”, with a purpose to “preserve issues easy and acquainted”.
“As a part of our ongoing efforts to enhance the expertise, beginning with v81, we’re making the Common Menu the default navigation for most individuals to maintain issues easy and acquainted. Whereas we proceed to experiment and enhance Navigator, it’s nonetheless obtainable! You possibly can flip it on anytime within the superior settings.”
Whereas within the PTC launch notes Meta stated Quest homeowners would nonetheless be capable of allow Navigator within the Superior settings, on an UploadVR Quest 3S not enrolled within the PTC the setting is now gone. The headset had Navigator in v79 steady, however now not has it after routinely updating to v81 steady.
In distinction, on an UploadVR Quest 3 enrolled within the PTC, Navigator stays enabled after updating to v81 steady.
Meta Teases The Subsequent Evolution Of Quest’s System Interface
Through the Join 2025 Developer Keynote, Meta teased a brief clip of the following evolution of Quest’s Horizon OS system interface.
This means that Meta feels that the present Navigator is not but prepared to interchange the standard Quest UI. At Join 2025, Meta teased a brand new Horizon OS UI that appears to be an developed model of Navigator, describing it as “a piece in progress”.
Worlds Security System
Meta says that v81 features a “Worlds Security System” that “prompts customers to make use of an present close by boundary or create a brand new one that’s acceptable for his or her expertise”.
Quest’s New Boundary System Is A Harmful Security Regression
Over the previous 9 months, Meta rolled out an overhauled Quest boundary system with decreased friction. However the brand new method has additionally turned out to be a harmful security regression.
The brand new characteristic is likely to be a response to the protection points launched by the modifications to Quest’s boundary system previously few years, which have aimed to cut back friction however have additionally made the headset much less protected to make use of.
Improved Horizon Feed
Meta modified the design of Horizon Feed, the primary app that launches when Horizon OS boots.
It now reveals hyperlinks to 4 pals you have been just lately energetic with, 3 really useful Horizon Worlds, 3 really useful apps you’ve put in, and a carousel of suggestions on the prime proper. You possibly can scroll right down to see extra suggestions – or simply do what most Quest homeowners do and shut Horizon Feed after every boot.
Home windows 11 Distant Desktop No Longer Experimental?
Meta says v81 makes the seamless Home windows 11 distant desktop system that launched on the finish of final 12 months as an experimental characteristic “obtainable by default”.
Quest 3’s Home windows 11 Integration Arrives As Experimental Characteristic
Quest 3’s seamless Home windows 11 integration is now obtainable as an experimental characteristic in Horizon OS v72.
Nevertheless, on an UploadVR Quest 3S with v81 steady, the choice continues to be listed as an experimental characteristic, and never enabled by default, even after a number of reboots. It is potential that this can be a separate rollout to the principle v81 launch.
Within the launch notes for v81 PTC, Meta stated it additionally improved Meta AI on Quest, making it “extra correct and higher in a position to guess what you need it to do”:
For instance, once you say “It’s too loud”, Meta AI will flip down the quantity, and you’ll ask it to “return” when you desire the earlier quantity.
Meta AI can be higher at developing browser URLs, so you possibly can 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”.
It is unclear whether or not this enchancment carries over to v81 steady. Whereas Meta AI is obtainable on Ray-Ban Meta in all 18 nations the place the glasses are offered, on Quest it nonetheless seems to be solely obtainable within the US & Canada.
New Consumer Switcher UI?
For Quest headsets with a number of accounts, Meta says it is rolling out a brand new person switcher UI with “a refreshed appear and feel”.
Oculus Quest 2 Will get Multi-Consumer Assist And Native App Sharing
Fb is rolling out the flexibility to log into a number of accounts on an Oculus Quest 2, and for these extra accounts to entry the headset proprietor’s apps. The options ought to give every account separate recreation progress & achievements alongside impartial buddy lists, browser historical past, and privateness settings. You possibly can “lock
Meta says the brand new UI will allow you to add new accounts straight from it, avoiding the necessity to signal into an present account and navigate to settings.
On two separate UploadVR headsets with v81, we don’t but see a brand new person switcher UI. It could be rolling out individually to the principle replace.
Up To 12 Home windows?
Since Horizon OS v67 as an experimental choice and v69 by default, Quest headsets have allow you to pull out as much as three 2D home windows and place them freely in area, along with the three home windows you possibly can connect to your menu dock, for a complete of six energetic home windows.
Quest v67 Lastly Lets You Freely Place Home windows
The Quest v67 replace allows you to freely place 2D home windows, improves Quest Professional’s eye monitoring, lets Quest 3 scan Wi-Fi QR Codes, and extra.
With v81, Meta says the 2D energetic window restrict has been elevated to 12. Nevertheless, on two separate UploadVR headsets with v81, we had been unable to tug out greater than 3, which means the restrict stays at 6. The elevated window restrict could also be rolling out individually to the principle replace.
