Skip to main content
ShowbizDonkey
ShowbizDonkey
Inspiring
November 13, 2020

Quest 2 / Quest Build 23.0 Release Notes

These features and enhancements will become available starting on 11/13/2020



Oculus Move

  • From slashing boxes in Beat Saber to mowing down zombies in Arizona Sunshine, you can now keep track of the estimated calories you burn and how long you’ve been physically active across any app or game in VR with our new platform feature, Oculus Move
  • Oculus Move allows you to set daily goals and track progress based on estimated calories burned and time spent being physically active in VR.
  • Please note, Oculus Move is rolling out gradually starting next week, so some users may not see this feature right away.

Quest 2 Frame Rate

  • With this release, Quest 2 headsets can now run natively at 90 Hz by default. This higher frame rate has been shown to provide a smoother visual experience and improve your time spent in VR overall.
    • To start, system level software will run at 90 Hz. Additional app adoption is based on developer discretion. Developers will have full-access to this feature as part of the upcoming SDK release.

Voice Commands

  • You can now access your Voice Activity in your headset. This means that you’ll be able to view, hear and delete your voice interactions while you’re still in-VR. To manage your voice activity:
    • Put on your Quest or Quest 2 headset, then select Settings > Voice Commands > Activity Log
  • You’ll still be able to access your Voice Activity from your mobile app or from the Oculus website as well.

Voice Dictation

  • Automatic punctuation: No more saying ‘comma’ or ‘period’ when you want to add punctuation to your dictation. In this release we’ve added automatic punctuation and capitalization to Voice Dictation, making it easier and more efficient to type with your voice.
    • As you speak, dictation will automatically fill in periods, commas, question marks and capitalization. Afterwards, you can give us a thumbs up or thumbs down to provide feedback on your experience.
      • Note: This experience will gradually roll out to English speaking users in the US & Canada.
  • Dictation from the Search bar: Voice Dictation will now be conveniently integrated within the Oculus search bar. Instead of triggering dictation from the keyboard, you can now quickly find it in the Search bar where your query will auto-submit so you can get your search result within seconds.
    • Note: This experience will gradually roll out to English speaking users in the US & Canada.

Voice Commands, Voice Dictation & Predictive Text availability

  • All three features will now be available to English speaking users in Canada.
    • Please note these features will be rolled out to English speaking users in Canada gradually over time.

Accessibility

  • To help improve the readability of text in-VR, you now have the option to adjust the font size for text that appears in your headset. To do this, select Settings > Device > Text Size.

Mobile App

  • We’ve updated the Oculus mobile app to allow you to seamlessly launch app content the next time you put on your headset. This means that the next time you see a challenge you want to join or an event you want to attend in the mobile app, you can save it and have it show up in your headset.
    • Please note this feature is currently an experiment and may not be available to all users at this time.

System

  • We’ve made software enhancements to both Quest and Quest 2 to reduce latency and improve your in-VR experience.

In-VR Experience

  • To help keep you comfortable from anywhere in VR, you can now grab and move both the keyboard and menu bar to a more optimal position for your situation.
  • With this release we’ve introduced the ability to complete additional tasks from within an app without having to return to your Home. This means that sending friend requests, sharing media, making in-app purchases and more can be completed without leaving your current app or experience.
    • Please note, this feature is dependent on developers implementing Focus Awareness and updating their SDK to v23.
  • We've also rolled out the new universal menu bar to all first-generation Quest headsets.

Education

  • We know it can be overwhelming for new users to enter VR for the first time, so we’ve created some new features to help. These include:
    • Getting to Know your Quest: A series of mini tutorial experiences to introduce you to the basics of VR.
    • Progress bar: See which tutorials you’ve completed and what you can do next.
    • Achievements: Just like your favorite apps and games, get achievements for completing tutorials and leveling up the time you spend in-VR.
      • Please note that these features are part of an experiment and may not be available to all users at this time.

Browser

  • You can now seamlessly upload and download files to and from your headset via Browser. Upload a video to YouTube, download photos from Dropbox, or share files via Google Docs, all without ever having to leave VR.

Bug Reporting

  • We’ve introduced the ability for you to let us know when something isn’t working by reporting a bug. Bug reporting helps us recognize issues and make adjustments to improve your overall in-VR experience.
    • To report a bug, select Settings > About > Report a Bug or visit Quick Actions and select the Bug Reporter Icon.
    • Please note, the Bug Reporter is rolling out gradually, so some users may not see this feature right away.
    • Also please note, Oculus Support does not respond to bug submissions. If you need assistance, please contact our support team directly.

Quest apps on Quest 2

  • If you had a Quest headset and upgrade to a Quest 2, you’ll now have the option to automatically download your previously downloaded apps from your Quest when you finish setting up your Quest 2.
    • Note: You can always re-download apps associated with your account on a new device, this specific update streamlines the process by surfacing the option to download multiple apps at the end of your Quest 2 setup.

Quest Display

  • We’ve improved the Pixel density for Quest, leading to improved image resolution.
    • This enhancement is for the first-generation Oculus Quest only.

Casting

  • Sharing what’s happening in your headset just got even easier with web casting. With this update, we’ve enabled casting to oculus.com/casting on a desktop web browser such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge
  • When casting to the Oculus App on iOS and Android, you can now record what’s being cast directly on the phone where it will save to the device’s camera roll.

Fixes
  • We’ve made improvements to Guardian to reduce unintended drift or positional movement.
  • We’ve fixed a bug that caused some larger apps to fail to download.
  • We’ve fixed a bug that caused some headsets to go into sleep mode while actively watching video in media apps.
    This topic has been closed for replies.

    229 replies

    Show previous replies
    Anonymous
    December 5, 2020
    Update 23 . Oculus wrote: we increased the amount of pixels for the first generation oculus, which improved the resolution of the image. Well, I don't see anything that's changed in the Home's resolution. If the resolution is increased I would like to know by how much.  I've already used Questasm software. And the I saw the result very improved The definition of the home was very clear. I doubled to 2048X2048 . It was great. Even increasing only half c was better. If anyone has seen a remarkable difference I would like to know. And I repeat myself I would like to know what resolution it increased
    TomCgcmfc
    Honored Contributor
    December 5, 2020

    Plumes said:

    Update 23 . Oculus wrote: we increased the amount of pixels for the first generation oculus, which improved the resolution of the image. Well, I don't see anything that's changed in the Home's resolution. If the resolution is increased I would like to know by how much.  I've already used Questasm software. And the I saw the result very improved The definition of the home was very clear. I doubled to 2048X2048 . It was great. Even increasing only half c was better. If anyone has seen a remarkable difference I would like to know. And I repeat myself I would like to know what resolution it increased


    Looks pretty obvious to me with my Q1/v23 when I go into the browser and go to this forum.  Everything is much sharper and nicer to read.  Still a bit of delay when you scroll up/down though.  On the home screen there seems to be less jaggies on panel edges. 

    I don't think resolution has changed (still = native I think), just pixel density (which should give a higher apparent res).  If you feel the need to know, maybe contact Oculus Support and see if any of their techs can explain the change.  Please let us know if you find out anything.  Thanks mate and cheers.
    i9 13900K water cooled, RTX4090, Z790 MB w/wifi6e, 64Gb 6400 ram, 2x2TB SSD, 1000W PSU, Win 11, QPro, Q3, w/Link and Air Link, Vive Pro1 with 2x2.0 base stations, Etsy lens mod and Index Controllers
    Anonymous
    December 6, 2020




    Yes, you're right Tom. I too notice a difference in the display of the notice board. But I'm disappointed they could increase native resolution by at least half. When I'm on home it's always a little blurry it lacks resolution. I'll try to contact the technical department to find out if it can be done. Otherwise why we announce such a minimal improvement . This is disconcarting for the owners of Oculus first generalization. As soon as I have an answer I will indicate it here on this post.
    TomCgcmfc
    Honored Contributor
    December 6, 2020
    @Plumes  Ya, we always want more and better, lol!  I think that the Q1 (still luv mine btw) is limited by it's physical native resolution (1440x1600) vs the higher resolution of the Q2 (1832x1920), together with its faster processing chip.  I preordered a Q2 and there is a big improvement in clarity within the home screen and also for many standalone mobile VR games.  As a standalone media player the Q2 is pretty hard to beat imho.  With Link and wireless w/Virtual Desktop the difference was not quite so much but of course it was still a bit better with the Q2.  This was pre-v23 btw.

    I ended up returning my Q2 and Elite strap to the Oculus store for a refund (which, thanks to Oculus Support I got without any problems).  This was due to a number of minor issues I had that included lack of proper IPD adjustment (mine's 69.0mm), sleep mode turning on every 2 minutes, kinda flimsy Elite strap, poor battery management, and lack of oled panels). 

    Probably nothing that I could not have lived with and I'm sure Oculus will address the minor issued over time.  Seems that many have already been taken care of with v23 and I'm confident that more improvements will happen over the next 3-6 months.  For me, because I was near the end of my worry-free 30 day return window I decided to just return it.  I'll continue to monitor Q2 development and maybe I'll pick up another one later next year. 

    In the meantime I'm very happy with my Q1 and I'm mainly using it wireless w/VD pcvr, occasionally for standalone mobile VR, and as a media player.  Currently most of my pcvr is with my Rift cv1 (at 2x SS) and my Vive Pro (mainly for flight/racing sims).  For now this seems to satisfy my VR needs and I think that my next major spend is going to be to update my 3yo gtx1080ti to a nice new rtx3080ti 20Gb Vram Q1-Q2 next year.
    i9 13900K water cooled, RTX4090, Z790 MB w/wifi6e, 64Gb 6400 ram, 2x2TB SSD, 1000W PSU, Win 11, QPro, Q3, w/Link and Air Link, Vive Pro1 with 2x2.0 base stations, Etsy lens mod and Index Controllers
    Anonymous
    December 6, 2020
    No probs with V23 so far . Link works fine, non of the other issues commented seem to have appeared so all is well.
    I can see the difference in certain things with the pixel density but i have not tried all my games yet for comparison.
    I find Storage in settings takes 2 or 3 attempts before timing out to show anything but i think it did that before.
    NosePunch
    Inspiring
    December 6, 2020
    Just updated my original Quest and it now has the extra virtual environments, like my Quest 2 has.  But, now it's showing two Oculus Dome environments, with no difference between them that I can tell.  I tried rebooting the Quest but it's still there, so maybe it's a bug.

    But I will say my biggest complaint about the Quest 2 is that it uses an LCD instead of OLED for true blacks.  Yes it has better resolution than the Quest 1 but the Quest 2 sucks for applications with darker scenes.  So it's a good thing I kept my original Quest.  I really hoping the Quest 3 brings back the OLED displays with a sliding IPD.  I would think that the cost of the technology will have gone down by then so they can keep their $299 price point.
    Anonymous
    December 6, 2020
    I got the new menu UI on my Quest, but the Home app won't load - it's constantly failing and reporting the error "Home has stopped responding". Tried a restart, but really don't want to factory reset
    markwest76
    Up and Coming
    December 8, 2020

    Plumes said:

    Update 23 . Oculus wrote: we increased the amount of pixels for the first generation oculus, which improved the resolution of the image. Well, I don't see anything that's changed in the Home's resolution. If the resolution is increased I would like to know by how much.  I've already used Questasm software. And the I saw the result very improved The definition of the home was very clear. I doubled to 2048X2048 . It was great. Even increasing only half c was better. If anyone has seen a remarkable difference I would like to know. And I repeat myself I would like to know what resolution it increased


     I can't see/tell any difference as well, if it has improved, must be very slightly, because Quest 1 home resolution is still very low...
    markwest76
    Up and Coming
    December 8, 2020
    well in fact there is something that I might have noticed: in my opinion now the sweet spot of my Quest 1 is slightly smaller (but may be only an impression)...is it possible that the resolution of the centre of the screen has been increased at the cost of more blurryness on the edges of the display?
    TwrchTrwydd
    Inspiring
    December 9, 2020
    what you experience here is FFR (Fixed Foveated Rendering).
    the problem is, that there is no documentation at what level this is set by default.
    My best practice was and is to use Sidequest where you can set the internal properties of the Quest.
    So you can set FFR to default, off and several flavours of strength.
    And - most important - you can set "Texture Resolution" from default (whatever that may be) up to 3072.
    On my Quest-1 I use FFR off and Texture 2560.

    The effect is clearly visible in Home-Screen and everything you play on the Quest.
    It does not work its magic when using link though because then the settings of the PC-software take over.
    Show more replies
    Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement