Quest build v31 release notes

[Ryanality]

These features and enhancements will become available starting the week of July 20, 2021.

Invite to Game

• We’ve created multiplayer APIs for developers to use with their apps. For any app that opts into this feature, you’ll be able to invite friends or people you’ve recently played with to your game sessions directly from the Quest Universal menu.
• You will be notified when your friend takes action based on your invite.
• When you’re invited to join someone through this method, you’ll receive a notification with info about who sent the invite and what app you’re being invited to.
• You can now view and manage the group of people you’re playing together with right from the Universal menu without leaving the app or experience you’re currently in.

Invite Link

• We want to make it easier to get your friends into VR with you. One way we’re doing this is by allowing you to create an invitation link which will take anyone who uses it to the same location in VR.
• The link is created and shared using the Oculus Mobile App. You can then use that invite link to text or post to your friends and communities.

Air Link

• Improved the dynamic bitrate to reduce the occurrence of stalls and high latency, while also improving visual quality.
• Added the ability to access the Oculus menu (press Oculus button) during a connection timeout (3 dots screen).
• Identified and fixed a bug that caused Air Link to crash.
• Fixed an issue where some AMD drivers could crash when running Link/Air Link.

Messenger

• You can now send Reactions to messages in VR similar to how you would on mobile.
• You can now see the status of the messages that you send (Send receipts), as well as how much of the conversation other participants have read (Read receipts.)

USB-C Audio

• You can now use USB-C headphones with your Quest 2. For the list of supported USB-C headphones and adapters, see our support article here.
• If both 3.5mm and USB-C headphones are plugged in, then the audio will play on the 3.5mm headphones.
• If your 3.5mm or USB-C headphones have mics, they will be disabled as headphone mics are not supported on either the 3.5mm or USB-C ports.

Universal Menu

• We’ve made the Library, Settings, Notifications, and other menus larger for improved ease of use.

Security Settings

• We’ve created a dedicated security settings page in headset where you can set/reset your unlock pattern and access other security settings.

Save your passwords on Oculus Browser

• You can safely save and autofill your passwords on Browser. Now you’ll only have to type your password once before letting Browser auto-fill your password. And you can seal it behind your unlock pattern for added security.

Fixes

• This update includes a security fix to prevent third-party apps running in the background of people’s Quest devices from accessing their motion data, including controller and headset movement. Apps that run in the foreground-- meaning apps you actively play and engage with when using your headset -- are not affected by this fix and may collect real-time information about the current position of your headset and controllers to translate your movements into the virtual world; for more, see our support article privacy support article.
• Fixed an issue with wireless that caused degraded WiFi performance.

[ohgrant]

 Being someone who has had cats before, I can certainly see the advantage in your first scenario. Never meet a cat that wouldn't delight in tripping a human immersed in VR.  Second scenario sounds real interesting. I'll wait to see what the future brings    

[Zenbane]

I am interesting in something like this,

• Viewing my room through the passthrough lens.
• Using my VR Hands to load a virtual chair next to the real life couch in my room.
• Inviting a virtual friend to come sit on the virtual chair.
• Me walking and sitting on the real life couch.
• Me turning and looking at my virtual friend on the virtual chair next to me as I sit on my real life couch.

Couple that with the game overlays Kojack described... and wow.

Being able to interact with people who are present in a way where their digital selves and assets are merged with me and my real life assets is intriguing as *!$&**__!!

😁

[kojack]

Or place the virtual chair overlapped with the couch, so the person sits on it with you.

Hopefully a push for AR style mixed reality could mean newer Quest headsets might have colour cameras with better quality images. Or at the very least keep the 4 current monochrome tracking cameras and add two front facing colour cameras at about 64mm IPD just for passthrough.

Then we could have something like this: (using a Zed Mini):

[Thedemongod97]

How about fixing the payment method problem before doing these kind of things that way the problem does not persist and oculus will have better feedback  for their devices and in turn make more money if you guys can't do this then what are you even being paid for?

[ShocksVR]

Thanks for the update notes; my Quest2 is updating to v31 as I type this.

However, since were on the topic of updates, will the PC Software release notes ever be posted ? The last PC release notes were for v28, and it's currently on PTC v31.

Thanks !

[TomCgcmfc]

@ShocksVR  I also got v31 on my Q2 earlier today.  I think Air Link now works better, esp. using dynamic bitrates.  I'm now using 200mbps dynamic, previously 120mbps fixed.  I found I needed to opt into the v31ptc on my PC in order to see these benefits.  I suppose the stable/final v31 PC version will be out soon.  Everything else seems to work fine.

I kinda doubt that the PC app is going to get any separate Release Notes unless there are major changes/improvements for Rift headsets.  Really has not been anything new Rift related for quite a few versions now.  Oculus has already said that while the Rift will continue to be supported (eg. usual bug and security fixes) it is not likely to receive any additional features (eg. no hand tracking).

https://support.oculus.com/release-notes/

[TomCgcmfc]

OK my Oculus PC app v31ptc updated today to v32ptc.  There were no release notes for this anywhere.  I did not see differences so I opted out of beta and this then resulted in v31 final/stable.

Nothing major to report with v31 which I now have on both my Q2 and PC.  My only complaint is that PCVR at 120Hz refresh rate is still not performing as well for me as it did with v29.  Even with my rtx3090 the graphics is both Oculus and SteamVR apps have a bit of stutter.  Dropping down to 90Hz fixes this so that's what I'm now using.  I've also found that while Dynamic bitrates (200mbps for me) are more stable than v30 I still seem to get more consistent results using 120mbps Fixed.

I really like Air Link with my Q2 but I gotta say I'm a bit disappointed with the drop in 120Hz PCVR performance.  This was much better back in v29 for me.  I hate to say this but Virtual Desktop at 120Hz performs much better/smoother now.  Hopefully Oculus can get 120Hz PCVR with Air Link sorted out with future updates.  It is of course still Experimental so I imagine it needs a few more tweaks before going final.

[jacksodj]

Did this update remove the VR representation of the K830?

have the keyboard paired but no longer appears in home, and ghost hands are not present when I start to type. 

[RuneSR2]

Not sure new PC changes are needed though, at least my CV1 keeps working perfectly, also with the new update. 

[TomCgcmfc]

My Q2 got another small update a few hours ago.  It went from v31.0 to v31.1 (same as my PC 31.1).  I'm not sure what this update was supposed to address since, as usual there are no new/revised release notes.  Anyway, everything seems to still work fine with Link, Air Link, and Virtual Desktop.  Pretty sure it was just a Q2 software update because there wasn't any firmware flashing like there was when it initially went to v31.0.