The Oculus Link feature has been rolling out in beta for the last couple months. This technology from Oculus allows users to connect to their Oculus Quest to their gaming PC for high-end gaming and a wider variety of games and experiences to choose from. This also enabled the Quest to play SteamVR games, something that a lot of Oculus hardware owners love to do.
In the latest update to the Quest, v14, we saw a major big fix. While gaming on your PC with your Quest, the microphone wouldn’t be enabled. This means that if you were playing an online game, you could hear others talking, but were unable to talk to them. This led to a lot of frustration in the community, but the update has finally come.
This doesn’t impact the audio coming into the Quest from the PC, but only allows the microphone to finally work while gaming with the Quest on the PC.
Our Quest updated with the v14 update, and it works great. In the release notes, it is important to read what you need to do. You’ll need to make sure that both your headset and the Oculus PC software are up to date. To do that, simply go into settings, software update, and make sure you are all up to date and don’t have any pending updates. If you are consistently connected to WiFi, you won’t have to worry about this step. Your headset and software will update on its own.
Link Future
We are certain that there will be updates and improvements on this going forward. This tech is still in beta, so the updates should continue to come often and quickly. As for updates and what they will include, we aren’t too sure yet. We know that the audio input was essential to the software moving forward, but we aren’t sure what tricks Oculus has put their sleeves next.
The Link, in essence, turns the Quest into a Rift S. Because that is the case, you lose out on the functionality that brings so many to the Quest. You also lose out on hand tracking. Although that is very early ind development and Oculus hasn’t approved any games with it yet, we are still learning to experiment as a community with the new software.
If you are worried about losing functionality, wireless abilities, and hand tracking, there’s no need to buy a cable worth $80. Thats especially true if you don’t have a library of VR experiences already bought on your PC. For more VR news and community updates, make sure to check back at VRGear.com.
