Quest v71 is a large replace, bringing numerous enhancements and new options to Meta’s Horizon OS.
In no explicit order, the v71 replace is bringing: a refresh of the system interface design, an AI mannequin that converts microphone audio into estimated facial expressions, smoother passthrough, practice help for Journey Mode, Dolby Atmos and Dolby Digital Encompass, a first-party calendar app, a shortcut to Distant Desktop in Fast Settings, enhancements to Scene Mesh scanning, a quantity mixer for app and name audio, the power to ship flat and spatial movies in Horizon chats, the power to pair controllers and styluses contained in the headset, and an app permissions indicator on the menu bar. That is so much!
As with all Quest updates, v71 will “roll out” progressively, so it could take a number of days and even weeks to your headset to get the v71 replace.
Design Refresh & New Settings
Quest v71 brings a design refresh to Horizon OS.
Meta stated it “made assorted adjustments to the best way panels look and behave, the place the management bar resides, the colours of assorted UI components, and so forth”. This contains, in keeping with Meta, an improved Gentle Mode, and Darkish Mode’s look has been modified too.
Essentially the most important change although is to the Settings interface, which has been utterly revamped with a aspect tab design that resembles iPadOS and common Android on tablets. Meta says it is also improved search inside Settings, so you possibly can “discover precisely what you have been in search of”.
AI Audio To Expression
Meta says v71 brings Audio to Expression, an on-device AI mannequin that “derives compelling facial movement and lip sync indicators” from solely microphone enter, offering estimated facial expressions with out face monitoring {hardware}.
Audio to Expression can be supplied as a part of the identical API that builders can already use to entry Quest Professional face monitoring.
There was an Oculus Lipsync SDK for builders since 2015, a mannequin which converts microphone audio into believable lip motion (we even use it in our weekly from-VR podcasts). However Audio to Expression additionally supplies generated higher face actions, together with higher cheeks, eyelids, and eyebrows. And remarkably, Meta claims Audio to Expression truly makes use of much less CPU than Oculus Lipsync.
Smoother Passthrough
Meta says it “improved the digicam body charges to align together with your show body charges”, which ought to make passthrough look smoother.
That is the third introduced enchancment Meta has made to its passthrough expertise for the reason that launch of Quest 3. Replace v64 in April introduced improved publicity management and dynamic vary, making it simpler to learn bodily shows like your cellphone or monitor, after which replace v66 introduced considerably diminished warping distortion.
Journey Mode On Trains
As Meta teased at Join, v71 provides help for trains to Journey Mode.
Initially designed for airplanes, Quest 2 and three bought a Journey Mode again in Could, and it is supported on the brand new Quest 3S too.
However Why Is A Journey Mode Wanted In The First Place?
Folks usually suppose that markerless inside-out monitoring programs on headsets, glasses, and self-tracking controllers solely use the cameras, however this is not the case. These programs rely simply as a lot on the inertial measurement unit (IMU), a chip that comprises a tiny accelerometer and gyroscope.
Whereas cameras sometimes run at 30Hz or 60Hz, the IMU sometimes supplies updates round 1000Hz, enabling a lot decrease latency. Nonetheless, an IMU cannot truly detect absolute motion – a minimum of circuitously. The accelerometer within the IMU senses acceleration relative to gravity, and you may take the integral of acceleration over time to get velocity. And when you once more take the integral of these velocity values over time, you get displacement from the unique place.
This course of is known as useless reckoning. From second to second, it’s how each headset and controller tracks itself, and the optical facet like cameras or laser base stations are basically solely used to appropriate for the cumulative error that outcomes from the noisiness of IMU knowledge. However in a transferring car the accelerometer will decide up the acceleration of the car itself, considering it is the headset itself transferring, which ends up in sudden and speedy positional drifting.
Some Quest homeowners reported that Journey Mode already works with trains, however this official help will seemingly make it extra dependable.
Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional has had a Journey Mode since launch, which we praised in our evaluation, and Apple additionally simply added official help for trains in visionOS 2.
Dolby Atmos & Dolby Digital Encompass
Quest v71 provides help for each Dolby Atmos and Dolby Digital 5.1/7.1 encompass audio, with the headset’s rotation panning the soundscape.
Meta says this can be supported in “content material on choose web sites in Browser” and that it’s going to “increase to different service suppliers quickly”.
A Calendar App
With v71 Horizon OS now has a built-in Calendar app.
The Horizon OS Calendar helps Google Calendar and Microsoft’s Outlook Calendar, in addition to Horizon Worlds occasions and Horizon Workrooms conferences.
Distant Desktop in Fast Settings
With v71, you possibly can entry your PC as a digital display in Horizon OS utilizing Meta’s first-party software program through a shortcut in Fast Settings, that means you now not must hunt by your app library for it.
Quests Can Quickly Lengthen Home windows Laptops By Simply Trying At Them
Quest headsets will quickly have the ability to prolong Home windows 11 laptops by simply them, and with out putting in particular software program.
Sooner or later Meta plans to cut back the friction of Distant Desktop even additional for Home windows 11 laptops, through a partnership with Microsoft that may allow you to prolong them by simply them.
Scene Mesh Scanning Enhancements
With v71, Meta says you can replace the mesh for a room from Settings, constructing on and refining the unique mesh, as an alternative of needing to rescan it from scratch.
You may additionally, the corporate says, see a miniature 3D illustration of every room you may have saved.
Quantity Mixer
With v71 you possibly can regulate the quantity of Calls individually from the quantity of App & Media audio, from Fast Settings.
This implies you may now not must deliver down the audio quantity of every recreation to listen to different individuals in your Horizon Get together, WhatsApp/Messenger name, or different communications platform.
Share (Spatial) Movies In Horizon Chats
With v71, you can ship movies to your Horizon followers in Horizon chats.
Meta says this helps each flat movies and Apple spatial movies, that means you possibly can immediately ship spatial movies you seize together with your iPhone 15 Professional or iPhone 16 sequence cellphone, and others will have the ability to see them of their headset.
In-Headset Controller & Stylus Pairing
Beforehand, you may solely pair new Contact controllers, when you bought a substitute for instance, utilizing the Meta Quest cell app (now referred to as Meta Horizon).
With v71 Meta says you possibly can pair Contact controllers and Logitech MX Ink styluses contained in the headset, identical to you already can with gamepads.
Nonetheless, we should always observe that the corporate truly initially stated this is able to arrive in v68, and it did not, persevering with the complicated pattern of Meta placing issues within the official Horizon OS hangelog that are not truly there within the construct.
With v71, Meta says it added “real-time permissions indicator” to the common menu bar of Horizon OS, letting which options are at present being accessed by apps.
This performance can also be current on iPhone and Android telephones, in addition to different platforms, and is now thought-about a elementary privateness function.
