Oculus Insight: how Facebook unplugged VR and opened virtual worlds to everyone

VR can be a pain – setting up sensors or emitters, connecting cables and configuring the hardware can take so long, it might not seem worthwhile for a quick gaming session. It’s all too easy for that expensive VR headset to be left gathering dust – even if you’ve invested in a powerful gaming PC to support it. The release of Oculus Go in 2018 went some way towards changing that, offering a VR experience that was fully self-contained, with no wires or need for additional hardware. Just strap on the headset and get started. It was impressive stuff, and far more affordable than other VR headsets available at the time, but was much more limited than more powerful, tethered headsets. Most significantly, its movement system was ‘orientation only’, meaning you could turn your head to look around the environment, but couldn’t move through it. That all changed with the release of Oculus Quest in May this year. The Quest is still fully wireless, but unlike the Go, it offers six degrees of freedom – all without the need for any external hardware dotted around your room.