Meta Explores Home Theater Experience in Quest’s Horizon OS Experimentation

Meta has already offered a method for viewing your own content on the Quest, but it’s about as thrilling as rummaging through a file drawer and staring at a screen. That’s far from the immersive experience of a true home theater. The team at Meta, however, seems to have plans up their sleeves to change this.

Mark Rabkin, the VP heading Horizon OS and Quest, recently shared in a post that Meta is in the midst of developing a home theater environment for Horizon OS. This isn’t just Quest’s operating system; it’s also poised to power a variety of third-party headsets in the near future.

When someone questioned why this hasn’t been a focus before, Rabkin replied that the team is hard at work experimenting with lighting and other effects to determine what delivers the best experience. They’re also trying to crack the code on amazing sound.

It’s not Meta’s first dance with the concept of a virtual theater. Back in 2014, when Meta was still known as Facebook/Oculus, the company rolled out Oculus Cinema for Samsung Gear VR. This later evolved into Oculus Video for both Gear VR and Rift, offering a unified platform to view personal content and rent movies directly to the devices. In late 2015, Oculus Social arrived, allowing up to five users to hang out and watch Twitch and Vimeo streams together in a range of virtual cinemas.

Today’s Horizon Home on Quest, which received a 2021 update for inviting friends over to watch videos or launch VR apps, is Meta’s latest swing at virtual social viewing. Yet, despite these enhancements, it still lacks the dedicated home theater features like custom settings and intricate playback controls.

Throughout these ventures, the consistent challenge has been navigating the hurdles these apps place between users and straightforward content access. This complexity has nudged users towards more open options like Bigscreen and Skybox, as well as specialized apps like Prime Video, YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix.

Even though it’s unlikely Meta’s next theater environment will consolidate all those diverse apps into one grand solution, just having a convenient, built-in option to immersively enjoy personal content might be just the ticket they’re looking for.