Meta Testing Home Theater Feature for Quest’s Horizon OS

Meta has been providing a way for Quest users to watch their personal content, though navigating through a file system on a windowed screen isn’t exactly the immersive experience one might hope for in a home theater setup. The company is now exploring how to enhance this experience.

Mark Rabkin, the Vice President overseeing Horizon OS and Quest, recently mentioned in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that Meta is developing a home theater environment for Horizon OS. This operating system not only powers Quest but will soon be integrated into a variety of third-party headsets as well.

Rabkin was responding to curiosity about why such a feature hasn’t already been developed. He explained that the team is busy “[w]orking on all that, experimenting with lighting and other effects to see what’s best. Also trying to figure out awesome sound.”

Meta’s interest in theater environments is not new. Back in 2014, when the company was known as Facebook/Oculus, they launched Oculus Cinema for Samsung Gear VR. This later evolved into Oculus Video for Gear VR and Rift, creating a more unified way to view personal content and rent movies for on-device watching. Another notable initiative came in late 2015 with Oculus Social, which facilitated up to five people to connect and watch streaming platforms like Twitch and Vimeo in various virtual theaters.

Even though these older apps are no longer around, Meta’s endeavors have continued. The most recent was Horizon Home on Quest, which was updated in 2021 to let users bring friends into their virtual space to watch videos and jump into VR apps together. However, it didn’t quite fulfill the full promise of a home theater app, missing features like custom environments and advanced playback controls.

Though Meta has offered several solutions over time, a common issue has been the complexity in accessing traditional content, which often pushed users towards more open, third-party alternatives like Bigscreen and Skybox, as well as individual apps for services like Prime Video, YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix.

While Meta’s upcoming venture might not merge these different platforms into one grand theater experience, simply having a built-in, easily accessible way to immerse yourself in personal content could be a significant step towards creating the ultimate virtual home theater.