Meta Explores Home Theater Experience for Quest’s Horizon OS

Meta has offered ways to watch content on the Quest for a while, but let’s be honest—it’s more like sifting through files and staring at screens rather than feeling like you’re in a real home theater. Well, Meta’s looking to change that.

Mark Rabkin, the VP overseeing Horizon OS and Quest, recently shared in a post on X that the company is toying with the idea of a fully immersive home theater experience within Horizon OS. This is not just for the Quest OS but also for a range of third-party headsets that will soon run this operating system.

Responding to a comment questioning why this feature isn’t already available, Rabkin mentioned the team is busy “[e]xperimenting with lighting and other effects to find what works best.” They’re also delving into creating an amazing sound experience.

This isn’t the first time Meta has tackled a theater environment. Back in 2014, when Meta was still under the Facebook/Oculus umbrella, they launched Oculus Cinema for Samsung Gear VR. It eventually evolved into Oculus Video for both Gear VR and Rift, enabling users to watch their content and rent movies directly on their devices. They also introduced Oculus Social in late 2015, which let up to five friends get together to enjoy Twitch and Vimeo streams in various virtual theaters.

In more recent history, Horizon Home on Quest was updated in 2021. It allowed multiple users to gather in a virtual living space to watch videos and dive into VR experiences together. However, it missed the mark as a full-fledged home theater app, lacking features like customized environments or advanced playback controls.

Throughout these efforts, a recurring challenge has been the obstacles placed between users and their content. These hurdles often nudged people toward more open alternatives like Bigscreen and Skybox or dedicated apps for streaming services like Prime Video, YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix.

Looking ahead, Meta’s upcoming theater environment likely won’t merge all these fragmented apps into one singular theater experience. Nevertheless, having a built-in option to easily enjoy your own content might just hit the sweet spot for many users.