Meta Connect 2022 has officially been announced for October 11th. Looking back at Facebook Connect 2021 here's a preview of what we expect to see at this year's Meta Connect including release dates for games like Bonelab, Among Us VR, Ghostbusters VR and more.

Meta announced the date for their next connect presentation this week and Looking back to lat year’s connect we can see a possible game plan for this year’s meta connect on October 11th.

First and foremost we will get a complete overview of project cambria or what is rumored to be named the meta quest pro. Zuck daddy announced on the Joe Rogan podcast that it will be unveiled at this years connect, and he just posted this obstructed image of him wearing the headset telling us to see him at connect 2022. You know what, maybe I will. I’m sure a large chunk of the presentation will be sharing the specs and new abilities of the meta quest pro along with new games and experiences that take advantage of those features. I expect we will get a pre-order announcement with a price, and with the recent price hike of the quest 2, that pro headset surely will be expensive.

We hopefully will get actual release dates on some of the most anticipated VR games of the year that were announced at the meta gaming showcase, like the walking dead saints and sinners chapter 2 retribution, among us vr which last month we got access to the beta version, sorry they nda’d the testers and the devs have said it is pretty much finished, then we also have NFL pro era which I would think should be out any day now since the season is upon us and for the love of all crablets I hope we get another trailer and a solid release date for bonelab. Bonelab’s creator Brandon Laatsch has been more active on twitter lately discussing some rather interesting pieces of the game and back in july tweeted that the game is finished but they are working on bugs. So I’m laying my bet down here and fully expecting a release date at connect. Oh by the way remember that GTA San Andreas VR  announcement from last years connect? Where the Zuck is that? And lastly Ghostbusters VR was the grand finale at the gaming showcase in april and Halloween is just a couple weeks post the connect event so that would just make sense for us to get a date for the co-op mystery ghost sucker upper..

Last year’s connect was all about the metaverse so I’m sure there will be even more virtual environments and graphics that make us slightly uncomfortable. This years connect will focus on the building of the metaverse and the future of augmented and virtual reality. We will hear from industry leaders on the latest technologies and how to use them to grow said metaverse. 

We should see more about those avatar and horizon graphical updates which Mark teased on his instagram after the meme-pocalypse of the horizon france and spain announcement. I also bet we may learn more about meta’s recently announced partnership with qualcomm and what they are working towards when it comes to future snapdragon chipsets and hardware. I’ll throw this hailmary out there. Maybe we get just a tiny teaser for a quest 3 like the project cambria announcement last year? You know, we can always dream.

Other than the metaverse and VR games we probably will hear about more privacy and security features that no one will believe, and just maybe they will give us an update on that crazy future concept headset mirror lake.   

What do you think we’ll see at meta’s connect 2022? Shoot your shot in the comments below and we will see which we get right and which we get wrong come october. Thanks for watching and as always I’ll catch you in the next quickie.

Meta accounts are finally live. Here's a tutorial on how to setup a meta account and a horizon profile which finally removes your facebook account from your oculus meta quest 2. BEFORE YOU SET UP YOUR META ACCOUNT: This process worked seamlessly for me and others but for some it has led to issues and even people losing access to their games. Hopefully Meta is fixing those issues now. Also make sure your headset is on the latest firmware as of recording this video that would be version 43.

Here’s how to separate your facebook account from your quest and setup your meta account. To make this super easy in your current browser go ahead and sign into the facebook account your use for your oculus now.

After signing in head over to meta.com/setup.

It will ask you to log in with your current facebook account so go ahead and click continue with facebook. Then either sign into your facebook or like me if you are already signed in click continue again to begin the meta separation.

To move your existing VR apps and info tied to your current quest account to the new meta account click next. 

This step is the critical one click continue without facebook to finally be free. Next you are going to be asked for a confirmation code that will be sent to your email so you can create a new password for your meta account. Find that code in your email and type it in then create your new meta password.

Then you’ll see your information, some of it being pulled from your prior facebook account for your new meta account and click finish account setup. The wheels will turn and then you’ll be prompted to set up your horizon profile.

Click next and you’ll then choose your public facing horizon profile name, and it doesn’t have to be your facebook name anymore. Then you can check your friends list to see who you follow and you can choose to unfollow them here if you’d like.

Then click next and choose your privacy settings from Open to all or just friends and family or go hans solo. Once you choose don’t click that finish button.

We need to connect your headset to your new meta account. Click that device code hyper link under thanks for completing setup. It will open a page inside facebook and then, click follow link.

Now jump into your quest headset and you should see a webpage pop up with a code that looks like this. Notice the blue bar that code has a timer on it so don’t dilly dally too much here. Memorize the code and remove your headset, then type that code into the box and click connect your device. You’ll get the the device connected prompt. Slip back into your quest and soon after your headset will then restart and the process is complete.

From now on you’ll sign in with your email of choice and password just like any other normal device or site. Thanks for watching, let me know how it goes for you and I’ll catch you in the next quickie!

Looking at the Public Test Channel for the Upcoming Quest Update 43 there’s quite a pleasant surprise that I think we all can get excited about.

To help try and cushion the blow of the quest price increase the next quest firmware update is coming with a bunch of desired features like of course replacing the facebook account requirements with new meta accounts and now new video capture options for all of you vr content creators out there.

Reddit user delicious potato2 spotted new video options that seem to nearly mirror the video recording options that came to the oculus developer hub last month with one additional feature that in my opinion is king here. Image stabilization. Usually watching back VR video especially in widescreen the footage can be jarring and even induce motion sickness for some due to head movements that feel natural when you are in headset but tend to be hard to keep up with on flat screen video recordings.

Meta does preface that increasing image stabilization will decrease field of view which makes sense, but nonetheless this is a great feature for anyone who likes to make VR content.

Along with stabilization you can choose the default aspect ratio for photos and videos, frame rate options, a choice of recording the left or right eye and my 2nd favorite feature choosing the video bit rate for better overall video recording quality. Just for reference the default recording bit rate before was 5 mbps, which is kinda blehhh.

Delicious potato 2 also found a permission selector for allowing eye tracking inside the menuss which I would think seems to hint that the quest pro / project cambria is nearing a public launch. 

Anyone wanna take bets? Throw down in the comments what month you think the pricey quest pro is going to be released. I’m thinking october.

One more quest bit to leave you with here if you haven’t yet, go check out the new hand tracking demo meta released called first hand to show off the new presence platform’s interaction sdk for developers. It’s currently in the app lab but feel free to like this video and expand the description for the link to find it and add to your quest library. It’s actually quite an impressive experience for a possible future of controller-less VR.

Well thanks for watching here to the end, I just wanted to say hey I appreciate you, I hope you my fellow Virtual Reality lover have a solid day.

Meta announced today that they are changing the pricing on their wildly successful and affordable Quest 2 headset. Starting in august so in less than a week the 128 gig quest 2 will go from 299 to 399 and the 256 gig will be 499 instead of 399. But don’t worry for a limited time from August 1st to December 31st 2022  you’ll get beat saber for free, that is if you buy the quest 2 brand new, the beat saber deal is not available for renewed headsets which oh yea those are going to be getting a price hike along with first party quest  accessories. Meta didn’t specify but from the current pricing of the refurb headsets they will more than likely be 350 and 450 respectively for the 2 models. Basically beat saber now costs $100 rather than $30 when you buy a new quest 2 I guess?

We all have known that oculus now meta have been selling these headsets at a loss so maybe this was a forgone conclusion but I assumed a price increase would have come for the next product in the quest lineup aka the quest 3. Not a product that has been out for nearly 2 years. And as a gamer being used to seeing xbox and playstation put out a redesign mid life cycle for less than the launch prices makes this feel a bit unfair. This does make me think project cambria is definitely going to be expensive and probably over the $1,000 dollar mark like we’ve seen reported.

Meta justifies the price increase by stating that the costs to make and ship our products have been on the rise. By adjusting the price of Quest 2, we can continue to grow our investment in groundbreaking research and new product development that pushes the VR industry to new heights.

We have an ambitious VR hardware roadmap, beginning with the launch of our high-end headset, Project Cambria, later this year. And we plan to ship new generations of Meta Quest after that. 

Even with these pricing changes, Meta Quest 2 continues to be the most affordable VR headset with a comparable feature set on the market. And each headset keeps getting better after you buy. From hand tracking improvements and Air Link to Meta Horizon Home, we’re constantly adding new features to make VR more social, intuitive, and immersive than ever before. We’ll continue shipping exciting new software updates to improve our products on a regular basis.

Now’s the right time for us to double down on our efforts to push the state of the art forward. We’ll continue working alongside the developers, early adopters, and die-hard fans who play and build for VR every day, and we can’t wait to keep sharing the work we’re doing at Reality Labs on the road to the metaverse.

These changes coming out right before the move from no longer requiring a facebook account to use the quest seems like a concerted effort but I guess it is what it is. If you are watching this now and want a quest I would go ahead and get it now before august 1st when the price increase goes live. 

You know whose prices aren’t increasing though? This video's sponsor.

Let me know in the comments how this makes you feel because for me I don't’ love it, but maybe I’m just being cynical.

New month, new quest update here’s what’s going down in the new firmware version 42 dropping this week.

Oculus or I guess one day it will be meta move? Is getting an update to 2.0. You can now earn move achievements attached to your fitness goals. Gamify your workout even more by trying to burn 150,000 calories for the ultimate achievement. The internet tells me that's like playing ping pong for 23 days straigh. Also you can check out the new trends tab to see your fitness progress compared to last week. As you can see I don’t really use my quest for working out so much. I really need to get metaverse ripped.

Next up Airlink is becoming official and now going steady with your headset moving from the experimental settings panel to the system settings. To commemorate this beautiful union the devs added a connection benchmarking tool to help understand and improve the quality of your wireless PCVR connection. Setting up airlink will now have less steps and it will finally be fully compatible with windows 11.

A contrast slider will also be added in the accessibility menu under settings to help with viewing text or just making your headset display tailored to your liking 

And lastly Parental controls are getting another round of features. Parents will be able to block teens from social features like creating and joining parties or watching VR content in horizon home, send and received messages in messenger or create posts from their headset to facebook. But note this won’t prevent them from access social feature inside a game.

Nothing huge but next month we get the big one with new meta accounts removing the facebook requirement. Thanks for watching to the end and I hope you have a solid day!

No More facebook accounts tied to your Quest!

The day has finally come, well almost, starting in August you will no longer need a facebook account to use a quest VR device.

Zuckerberg and Meta announced today they will begin rolling out Meta accounts, a new way for people to log in to their headset that doesn’t require a facebook account. Once you make a meta account you’ll also need to create a Meta Horizon profile aka a social profile in VR. THis sorta sounds like a facebook account right? Well I’ll get to that in a minute along with the new privacy settings that will be implemented.

For those of us that already have accounts that are tied to a facebook or have an old school oculus account that you had to merge with facebook you can choose to remove your facebook account during the setup process. But do know you will still need to create both a meta account and a horizon profile before being forced to on January 1st 2023 to continue using your Quest. So Happy early New Years!

As stated on meta’s blog your meta account is not a social media profile. Its a little confusing but just remember your meta Account is separate from your meta Horizon profile. The meta account is specifically for logging into your VR devices, and viewing and managing your purchases inside Meta the app store. Meta does have plans in the future to extend the account function so you can use it to login to other furter meta devices. Hmm I wonder what those could be…

Of course you can connect your meta account to your instagram or if you don’t care facebook to gain access to connected experiences like finding your friends on those platforms to play vr games with. Again this connection is optional.

Now on to your Meta horizon profile. Once you finish setting up your meta account you’ll be asked to set one of these up which is a social profile that can be accessed not only in vr but also on the web. #metaverse here we come. Inside your profile you can customize your appearance and username which thankfully doesn’t have to be your real name which will be displayed to others while you are VR. From here your oculus friends then become your followers like instagram with meta claiming this provides more ways of being social and connecting with others. You can then choose to share activity updates, achievements etc with your followers. By default if you already own a quest headset your oculus friends will automatically become your followers and you’ll be following them back. But you can choose to unfollow or remove anyone at anytime.

Looking to the privacy settings, meta accounts will give you the options of your profile being open to everyone, friends and family which gives you control to connect only with people you know, and where only the people that now follow you can see your activity and active status, or go Solo where people cannot see your activity or status and you’ll be asked to approve every follower requests. But even choosing the private solo option your profile picture, avatar, username, display name, follower count and number of people you follow will be publicly visible.

With these new meta horizon profiles we have seen what seems to be confirmation of new avatar images inside the past few meta quest firmware updates And believe it or not… they have legs!!

Lastly I’ll leave you with this bit of Project Cambria news. It seems Meta is going to take the apple approach and has decided to name project cambria the Quest Pro. Mac Rumor writer and iOS code digger Steve Moser found a string in the latest ios Quest app referencing pairing a new controller that reads, Pair Meta Quest Pro right controller. 

We soon will be free from facebook accounts attached to our quest. Let me know what you think about this if you care or will still keep your facebook connected to your new meta account. Thanks for watching and I’ll catch you in the next quickie.