Oculus is turning on its Air Link PC streaming feature for the Quest 2 virtual reality headset. Air Link is part of the Oculus v28 software update, which recently started rolling out to Oculus headset owners. Facebook Reality Labs head Andrew Bosworth says you can find the feature if you’re running v28 on your PC and Quest 2 headset; if you haven’t gotten access to the update yet, “it’s coming very soon.”
Air Link lets Quest 2 owners with a strong Wi-Fi connection play PC VR games wirelessly on their headsets. Air Link was initially disabled on v28. But as Upload points out, Quest 2 owners had found a way to unofficially turn it on, and Oculus had warned that the experience was “not representative” of the final result. Bosworth says Oculus is releasing the feature today because “the excitement over Air Link can’t be contained”; the release was originally scheduled for next week, so Bosworth’s tweet moves it up by a few days.
Looks like the excitement over Air Link can’t be contained, so we’re officially making it available today for everyone who has both Quest and PC v28. If you don’t have v28 yet, stay tuned, it’s coming very soon!
— Boz (@boztank) April 23, 2021
Air Link evolved from Oculus Link, which used a USB-C cable to run PC VR games on the otherwise standalone Oculus Quest line of devices. (Oculus says a cable will still give you the best graphical fidelity, and unlike Air Link, it will charge your headset while you’re playing.) A similar wireless feature was already built into Virtual Desktop, a third-party app. Depending on performance, Air Link could make Virtual Desktop’s alternative less appealing to Quest 2 owners. But Oculus isn’t currently bringing the feature to its original Quest headset. Air Link is also classed as an experimental feature. If it’s like the original Link, users can expect some bugs around the launch — but at least that launch is coming a little sooner than expected.
