Facebook and Oculus announced the Oculus Link technology back in September at the Oculus Connect Event. During this demo of the Quest becoming a Rift S, the company used their own USB-C cable. This cable wasn’t available when the Link software first came into beta, but now you can buy the official first-party Oculus Link cord for $79.
The cable was first available in select countries, but starting today, Facebook will ship the Link cable to all 22 countries and regions that you can buy the Oculus Quest from, including countries inside of Europe.
The Oculus Link feature and abilities are still in beta, but there are updates and improvements each week. This allows your Oculus Quest to become into a PC VR headset that can play play most PC VR games. The only extra hardware you need? A high-quality USB-C cable. Once that is obtained, simply plug your Quest into your PC and you can have full access to your SteamVR library and Oculus Rift library.
As for other options for your Link cable needs, you can find a number of them on Amazon. With that being said, we have yet to find a cable powerful enough to do the job while being longer than 3 meters. The Oculus Link official cable is 5 meters, significantly longer than any other third-party cable that companies are offering right now. Even with the specs being released early on in the product development, no company has invested the necessary time in this product development.
Third Party Cables
The difference between the third-part and official cable? The hardware inside the thick cable. Rather than using copper like most USB connectors, the Link cable uses fiber optic. This gives you the needed power to not only carry full 5 Gbit/s over 5 full meters, but gives enough power to the headset to ensure it is charging and not losing power while you are playing your games.
The advantages for Oculus don’t end there, as the fiber optic adds more versatility to the connector. The fiber is nearly half of the weight of the copper you’ll find in most USB cables, and it also gives you much more flexibility. For VR gaming, this is essential. Especially when moving from a standalone wire-free experience with your Quest to a tethered PC experience, you’ll want a cable that gives you as much freedom as possible.
Oculus Link is going to continue to improve as well as gain traction with virtual reality users. Its a simple fix for people who bought the Quest instead of the Rift S, but still want to play Rift exclusive games without having to buy another headset. If you have a PC that is VR-ready, this is going to to solve a lot of gaming dilemmas you see yourself in.
Will you buy the Oculus Link cable? Or are you sticking with third-party manufactures? Let us know in the comments below! For more VR news and community updates, make sure to check back at VRGear.com.
