Meta Explores Home Theater Features for Quest’s Horizon OS

Meta has provided a way to watch your own content on the Quest, but navigating through a conventional file system and viewing on a basic windowed panel doesn’t quite match the immersive feel of a home theater. Now, they’re toying with enhancing this experience.

In a recent X post, Mark Rabkin, who heads Horizon OS and Quest, shared that Meta is developing a new home theater environment for Horizon OS. This operating system isn’t just for Quest; it’s destined for a range of third-party headsets too.

In response to questions about why they hadn’t tackled this sooner, Rabkin mentioned that the team is actively exploring possibilities, adjusting lighting and effects to find the ideal setup. They’re also keen on figuring out how to deliver an outstanding sound experience.

Meta isn’t new to the theater environment concept. Back in 2014, when they were still Facebook/Oculus, they introduced Oculus Cinema for Samsung Gear VR. This later evolved into Oculus Video for Gear VR and Rift, offering users a unified way to watch personal content and rent movies. In late 2015, they rolled out Oculus Social, an early attempt that let up to five users watch Twitch and Vimeo streams together in virtual theaters.

Meta’s journey didn’t stop there. Without delving too deeply into past ventures (the lineup of discontinued apps is lengthy), their most recent effort was Horizon Home on Quest. This was upgraded in 2021 to permit users to host others in their virtual space, allowing them to watch videos and launch VR apps together. However, this lacked many features one would expect from a dedicated theater app, like customizable environments and enhanced playback options.

Despite varied content availability, previous apps shared a common hurdle: they presented enough friction that users often switched to more flexible alternatives like Bigscreen and Skybox, or opted for standalone apps like Prime Video, YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix.

Given this history, it’s unlikely that Meta’s upcoming theater environment will consolidate all these fragmented apps into a single, all-encompassing platform. However, offering a seamless and immersive method for viewing personal content might be a significant step forward.