It looks like Meta Quest virtual reality headsets will soon allow you to chat with other people right from the comfort of your own home screen. Horizon Home, which Meta hinted at last year at Connect, would be included in the v41 Quest update. Users of Horizon Home can instantly call other Quest users to join them in social activities such as watching VR videos together. In the past few years, Meta has been gradually introducing new Horizon-branded “metaverses” in a piecemeal fashion.
Mark Zuckerberg hung out with @AlexHonnold in Horizon Home to watch his 360 film The Soloist VR. With our upcoming Quest update, you can hang out, watch videos and jump into other apps with friends — right from your virtual home.https://t.co/NfLhZeit5i pic.twitter.com/BLizuyXsgg
— Meta Newsroom (@MetaNewsroom) June 10, 2022
In a video with Alex Honnold, Mark Zuckerberg announced Home’s rollout and gave a brief demonstration of the system. Horizon’s conventional legless avatars of Zuckerberg and Honnold debut in a 360-degree video of Honnold freely ascending the Dolomites, then shift to a space landscape for additional conversation. There are more choices for personalizing your Home area currently in development, according to a Facebook post by Mark Zuckerberg. An official from Meta said the v41 version would be released next week, at which point we can expect to learn more about the mechanism, such as how many individuals can join a single Hangout.
Horizon Worlds, Meta’s innovative and socializing platform, and Horizon Workrooms, Meta’s virtual reality meeting software, are now joined by Horizon Home. If you’re familiar with the app called Facebook Spaces from 2017, it’ll be a lot like this one. Horizon, a virtual reality hangout app, was shut down in 2019 in order to create room for it, but it never looked to be as popular as BigScreen, VRChat, and Rec Room. Players have been able to roam about and use their apps on the Quest homescreen alone up until now.
As a theoretical benefit, Home is able to be immediately integrated into the basic Quest gameplay. Additionally, as Meta attempts to diversify its business, it has increased its virtual and augmented reality activities. Meta recently canceled plans for a future smartwatch and an AR headset, instead focusing on long-term AR glasses ambitions, as part of their strategy. Meta fills an evident ecosystem need for simple, small digital meetups in VR software, which is a more nearer-term bet.
