The Horizon OS v77 system software program replace began to roll out final week within the PTC (Public Check Channel).
What Is the Public Check Channel (PTC)?
The Public Check Channel (PTC) is Meta Quest’s beta launch channel. For those who decide in, your headset receives a pre-release construct of every Quest system software program, now technically known as Horizon OS, model.
Notice that there are sometimes options within the eventual secure model not current within the PTC, and sometimes (however hardly ever) options or modifications within the PTC do not make it to the secure model.
Every month, when the PTC is launched, I analyze system information and apps to search for potential modifications that may trace at what Meta is engaged on.
Lots of the options found are nonetheless in improvement and should change considerably or by no means launch. Meta makes use of server-based rollouts as properly. Even when an replace helps a function, particular person headset house owners could not achieve entry for weeks or months after it’s introduced. In some instances, Meta could not announce a function in any respect, and as a substitute wait till a future model to each announce it and start rolling it out.
Additional, some options are introduced however then delayed with out discover, solely to reappear in later bulletins. Others quietly roll out to pick customers as experiments, with out ever being formally talked about.
What follows are a few of my findings throughout v76 and v77 PTC.
Main UI Overhaul
As revealed at Meta Join 2024, Meta is engaged on what’s slated to be one among their most intensive initiatives but to enhance Horizon OS.
Meta’s imaginative and prescient for the way forward for Horizon OS as proven at Join 2024.
In v77 or greater it looks like the longstanding dock and window system on Quest headsets, known as the Common Menu will likely be changed by a brand new system known as the Private Show. It consists of at the very least two main parts: Transportable Home windows and Navigator.
Transportable Home windows
Transportable Home windows is the brand new identify for the window configuration that beforehand allowed you to anchor as much as three functions above the Common Menu.
It will operate identically to the way it does immediately, however the principle distinction is that it’s going to have a drastically simplified interface rather than the Common Menu, with solely a motion deal with, a digital Meta button to open Navigator, and a button to point out or cover these home windows.
Transportable Home windows will be proven or hidden by double-pressing the Meta button in your proper Contact Controller, performing a double-pinch gesture whereas your palm, or urgent the digital button on the interface.
Navigator
A tutorial video for Navigator that appeared within the v76 system information.
Navigator is a model new overlay-style launcher in Horizon OS. System features beforehand discovered on the Common Menu, comparable to Profile, Notifications, Library, Individuals, Digital camera, Battery, Clock, and Fast Settings (now known as Fast Controls), at the moment are situated right here.
Whereas initially a few of these features will open their present 2D home windows, the main enchancment right here is that the Navigator overlay itself will be opened at any time — utterly impartial of your present 2D apps inside the Transportable Home windows show. This may be executed through a single press of the Meta button in your proper Contact Controller, performing a single-pinch gesture whereas your palm, or by urgent the digital Meta button on the interface.
Gadgets comparable to Library and Fast Controls are instantly built-in into the overlay, permitting you to open new apps and modify settings like brightness with out needing to rearrange energetic 2D home windows.
The Navigator overlay additionally features a area for privateness and system state indicators, situated above the Fast Controls icon. A purple dot seems when permissions just like the Microphone or Spatial Knowledge are being utilized by apps, whereas an orange dot signifies that system settings comparable to Journey Mode are energetic.
Meta is engaged on a number of Navigator parts and features that seem like a piece in progress and should not ship with the preliminary launch. These could embody a Worlds and/or Areas Tab with the flexibility to drop portals for different customers, a Me Tab, and a World Search operate.
New Window Capabilities
Horizon OS initially restricted customers to 3 apps in a set structure above the Common Menu. This modified with v67 PTC, which launched the New Window Structure experimental function, permitting as much as three extra apps to be positioned freely in area as Spatial Home windows. It additionally added Theater View, which enlarges a single window and contains an choice to dim the atmosphere.
With this setup having develop into the default in v69, Meta now plans additional enhancements, both alongside or shortly after the introduction of Transportable Home windows and Navigator.
There are a variety of window features listed which are doubtless supposed for inside debugging, however the brand new user-facing choices set to be launched seem like:
- Pin (“Connect to atmosphere”): “Stays behind if you journey to different worlds.”
- Return to Area (“Put Again”): Return the window the place you final pinned it.
- Share (“Share”): “Shares a panel in order that different customers in your world can see it.”
- Tether (“Transfer with you”): “Follows your head actions.”
A model of the Pin function being proven at Meta Join 2024.
Relying on the implementation, this might successfully transition Horizon OS to a system the place you’ll be able to convey Transportable Home windows wherever, whereas additionally supporting Spatial Home windows that may be shared and saved in numerous states throughout immersive apps and Horizon Worlds. There are additionally references to a parameter that removes the present restrict of three Spatial Home windows, which might considerably improve multitasking capabilities.
Eye-Monitoring-Based mostly Authentication
Strings added in v77 PTC counsel that Meta is working to help eye-tracking-based consumer authentication on Horizon OS through a function known as Face Enrollment.
This is able to function a further safety choice alongside the present passcode system. The strings describe it as getting used to unlock your account, entry apps, and authorize purchases.
Whereas this might be supposed for Quest Professional, that system was discontinued earlier this 12 months — making it extra doubtless that it is supposed for Quest 4, and presumably upcoming Horizon OS-powered headsets from ASUS and Lenovo.
Floor Typing
Strings added throughout v76 and v77 PTC counsel that Meta is experimenting with the flexibility to show flat surfaces right into a digital keyboard.
Researchers Say They’ve Solved Turning Any Floor Into A Keyboard
Researchers from Meta and ETH Zurich developed software program known as TouchInsight, which they are saying solves turning any floor right into a digital keyboard.
This idea was offered in analysis by Mark Zuckerberg and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth in 2023. Extra just lately, researchers from Meta and ETH Zurich developed a software program system known as TouchInsight, which they declare solves the issue of turning any floor right into a digital keyboard. May productization be imminent?
The Elimination Of Static Object Warnings
In v77 PTC, Meta seems to have eliminated the Quest 1-era Boundary impediment detection system, known as Playspace Scan, from the top of the Roomscale Boundary creation course of.
Beforehand, if there was an object comparable to a desk inside your Boundary, it might be highlighted with a pink pin, and also you’d obtain a warning prompting you to redraw. This wasn’t obligatory, nevertheless. It might be ignored by merely deciding on “Proceed.”
In v77 PTC, this technique and its associated strings seem to have been eliminated. Nonetheless, there is a main constructive: in my testing, the Roomscale Boundary setup course of runs far more easily, with fewer hitches and slowdowns.
The brand new “Stationary Ring” Boundary, with its adjustable sizes in Settings.
This variation follows Meta’s broader rollout of a brand new Boundary circulate launched in v72, the place customers at the moment are positioned right into a Stationary Boundary by default. You solely want to attract a Roomscale Boundary when launching into an immersive app, if one hasn’t already been set.
2025 seems to be a 12 months of sturdy emphasis on performance and optimization for Horizon OS and the broader Horizon platform.
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Meta’s CTO has responded to the discourse round his leaked “Horizon Worlds on cell completely has to interrupt out” memo.
With looming competitors from Google’s Android XR and reportedly upcoming Apple Imaginative and prescient gadgets, and as Meta concurrently prepares the OS for third-party producers, the corporate is seemingly doing every part it will probably to develop the platform’s capabilities whereas additionally enhancing stability and reliability.
