The Quest v69 replace brings multitasking enhancements, an adaptive backlight choice, spatial audio for home windows, and a spread of different enhancements to Meta’s blended actuality platform.
As with all Quest updates, v69 will “roll out” steadily, so it could take a couple of days and even weeks on your headset to get the v69 replace.
It will probably be Meta’s final system software program replace earlier than its Join convention, set for September 25-26, the place the corporate is predicted to launch a less expensive model of Quest 3 and announce upcoming enhancements to the Horizon OS platform its headsets run.
Free Window Positioning No Longer Experimental
In v67 Meta launched an experimental choice known as New Window Format, which helps you to pull out as much as three 2D home windows and place them freely in house, along with the three home windows you may connect to your dock, for a complete of six home windows.
It additionally added the brand new potential to take any window fullscreen, which makes it a lot bigger, means that you can dim the background, and quickly hides the complete dock and different home windows.
Quest v67 Lastly Lets You Freely Place Home windows
The Quest v67 replace enables you to freely place 2D home windows, improves Quest Professionalβs eye monitoring, lets Quest 3 scan Wi-Fi QR Codes, and extra.
With v69 New Window Format is not an experimental choice. It is now simply how Horizon OS works, enabled for everybody.
Seamless Multitasking
Since launch for Quest Professional and Quest 3 and since early 2023 for Quest 2 you’ve got been in a position to carry up the browser or different 2D home windows whereas inside an immersive app. And since v62 you’ve got been in a position to carry up the as much as three 2D home windows you had within the residence house in these apps.
However to renew interacting with the immersive app once more, you wanted to attenuate the 2D home windows you had open.
Footage by UploadVR.
v69 provides a brand new Seamless Multitasking experimental choice, which we beforehand reported on when it appeared within the Public Check Channel. Enabling it enables you to proceed to work together with the immersive app whereas your 2D home windows are open.
This implies you may, for instance, watch Netflix or YouTube whereas taking part in a VR sport. It has a efficiency penalty, however apps that use dynamic decision ought to scale down their decision to adapt.
Content material-Adaptive Backlight Management
Meta beforehand stated that Content material Adaptive Brightness Management (CABC) could be a brand new Quest 3 experimental choice added in v68, however we aren’t conscious of anybody’s headset really getting the characteristic.
Now the corporate says the characteristic is coming in v69, and it has been renamed Content material-Adaptive Backlight Management.
CABC already exists in some LCD TVs and LCD screens. It really works by dimming the backlight in darker scenes to attain deeper blacks which can be nearer to true black than the murky gray sometimes achieved by LCD. Fixed brightness modifications may be off-putting in content material with significantly various visuals although – we’ll be curious to see how effectively Meta’s CABC handles this.
Spatial Audio For 2D Home windows
Whereas nearly all immersive apps on Quest use spatial audio, till now sound from 2D home windows didn’t.
With v69 2D home windows may have spatial audio, that means audio emitted by them will sound like they’re coming from the window’s place in house.
That is on by default, however may be turned off within the settings if you do not need it.
Take away Apps From Library
In v66, launched again in June, Meta claimed you’d now be capable to disguise apps out of your library, comparable to demos and experiences you tried out for a couple of minutes and do not wish to use once more. However like CABC with v68, the characteristic did not really arrive.
Meta now says this long-requested functionality is being added in v69, however we’ll must see it to imagine it this time.
Frictionless Residence Atmosphere
Quest 3 begins in passthrough mode. Once you click on the button to toggle into immersive mode, loading your digital residence atmosphere, you usually needed to verify the room-scale boundary or draw a brand new one if the headset cannot acknowledge your room.
With v69, Meta says you will now be loaded right into a stationary boundary by default. You may solely have to attract a room-scale boundary when launching into an immersive VR app.
Bluetooth Fast Pairing
Quest v69 provides a brand new choice to get a notification when a close-by Bluetooth system enters pairing mode, that means you will not have to manually navigate to Bluetooth settings.
Meta says this can work for all supported Bluetooth units together with headphones, keyboards, mice, and gamepads.
New Residence Atmosphere: Oceanarium
Meta says v69 features a new Horizon Residence atmosphere known as Oceanarium.
Here is the way it describes Oceanarium:
Immerse your self in an underwater world crammed with seaweed and anemones that move with the mild ocean currents. Stand up shut and private with sea turtles, manta rays, and even an imposing whale whilst you expertise the fantastic thing about the ocean like by no means earlier than.
