Oculus Quest: 15 Awesome Things You Didn’t Know You Could Do With Your VR Headset
Still considered a pioneer in VR headset technology, the Oculus/Meta Quest was the first all-in-one headset that proved your VR experience was only limited by your imagination. Without the need to be plugged into a computer and boasting the latest digital mapping technology, your environment was finally impediment-free.
With powerful tracking thanks to Oculus Insight, your movements could be reflected in VR with no external accessories necessary. While the Quest is mostly used to provide the most immersive VR gaming experience available, it still has tons of other applications — from allowing you to explore natural monuments from the comfort of your own home to attending movie screenings in virtual theaters with your friends. Find out what other awesome things you didn’t know you could do with your Oculus Quest below.
Updated on December 23rd, 2021 by Joe Maring: It’s now been over two years since the first Oculus Quest launched, and more than a year since the Quest 2 debuted. While more people now have a Quest than ever before, there’s still lots of functionality not immediately apparent — especially to newcomers. Here’s an updated list of things to do with your Quest that you may have missed!
15 Watch Movies & TV Shows
Users who spend a lot of time binge-watching TV and movies will love the Oculus Quest for its ability to interface with all the major streaming services, like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. If users have Sling TV, they can watch all its content on a giant 180-inch display.
Users can also watch stored media on their Oculus Quest headset, or stream whatever content they want using the SKYBOX VR app. Attend a screening with friends at one of many virtual theaters and enjoy the same movie together (but apart). All content is viewed on a huge virtual screen!
14 Face Your Fears
If users have ever felt anxiety when encountering a spider, going on a job interview, or going to the doctor, they can overcome it by using a number of apps for the Oculus Quest. Fearless VR even uses voice volume, eye contact, speaking pace, and heart rate to help users overcome their fear of public speaking.
Face Your Fears 2 allows users to encounter all sorts of creepy crawlers, from spiders and cockroaches to rats and snakes, and emerge unscathed. It can also help users get over their fear of heights, needles, crowds, enclosed spaces, and many others.
13 Listen To Music
With the Oculus Quest, there’s no better way to connect with your favorite playlist, except this time there’s a visual component. With Youtube VR, you can watch your favorite Youtube videos transformed into amazing virtual reality environments.
With over one million different VR videos, users can experience their favorite music videos in 360-degree surroundings. If users want to simply kick back and listen to tunes without a lot of movement, they can watch regular Youtube videos in 2D but with the benefit of a big VR screen.
12 Attend Live Music & Sports With Other Users
With Virtual Venues VR, users can replicate the fun and excitement of being at a live venue. They can attend live concerts with world-renowned DJs all in the comfort of their own home, with groups of fellow fans from around the world.
Oculus Venues puts users in the front row of musical concerts, sporting events, comedy specials, and more. If they don’t want to be part of the crowd, they can watch in the privacy of their box seat (without the fee!).
11 Sculpt & Paint
If gaming or social interacting isn’t to a user’s liking, they can let their creativity soar with Tilt Brush, an upgraded version of an Oculus Go app. Without the hassle of being tethered with any cords, users are free to express themselves in a stunning virtual painting environment.
If painting isn’t a users’ artistic forte, they can try Gravity Sketch, which allows them to sculpt anything they want out of a variety of materials, from stone to metal. Best of all, artists will be able to walk around their 3D paintings and sculptures to admire their handiwork and improve.
10 Be A Virtual Explorer
The Oculus Quest allows users to experience exotic environments from the comfort of their own home, as well as be a part of exciting historical events. Developer Immersive VR Education partnered with Oculus Quest to painstakingly recreate the Apollo 11 mission, complete with Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins!
Users can also explore remote regions in Antarctica with National Geographic Explore VR, or the 12 underwater habitats of Ocean Rift, billed as a ‘VR aquatic safari park.’ They can even visit historically significant places, like Anne Frank’s house, or the Notre Dame Cathedral.
9 Hang Out With People From All Over The World
Make new friends by joining several VR communities in VRChat, which lets users hang out in virtual chat rooms and mingle or play games. Horizon Worlds offers tons of creative tools in a social environment, while Rec Room allows for both social meetups and fun social games.
And if users find that there are individuals they don’t want to interact with (tons of kids), they can just put them on mute and make them disappear. The VR communities on Oculus Quest are great ways to meet people without ever having to change out of your comfortable clothes.
8 Unwind In Calming Natural Environments
With the number of games available for the Oculus Quest, there’s no end to the amount of user entertainment, but users may find they want to use apps that help them reach a state of tranquility amidst the frenetic pace of everyday life.
With Nature Treks, users can choose from 9 different environments like a savannah, beach, or forest to explore, complete with calming music. If they’re not relaxed by nature, they can head out into space and watch the planets orbit around the sun.
7 Browse The Internet In VR
Watching movies and listening to music with Oculus Quest is great — but what if someone wants to browse their favorite websites? Once again, the Quest delivers!
The Oculus Quest comes with the Oculus Browser as one of the pre-installed apps. It allows users to visit any regular, 2D website they wish. Furthermore, Oculus Browser supports WebVR content for any websites with virtual reality content/videos on them. From visiting ScreenRant.com, Twitter, or anything else, it can all be done in the Oculus Browser.
6 Break A Sweat With Virtual Workouts
With all of the VR apps on Oculus Quest, it’s a lot more fun to track your fitness. One of the most popular fitness apps is Beat Saber, but that can get repetitive for some users who crave more variety and a wider selection of musical tracks to get their blood pumping.
There are boxing apps, golfing apps, and even apps that incorporate interval training so that users can feel like they’re getting an intense aerobic workout. Two of the most popular titles are currently FitXR and Supernatural — both of which offer creative ways to break a sweat with the Quest.
5 Link It To Your PC & Play Your Favorite Games
The Oculus Quest boasts a fun component called the Oculus Link, a feature that lets users play more graphically intense and feature-rich games powered by their gaming PC.
The accompanying cable, which is over twelve feet long, allows users to maximize their experience on their gaming PC without worrying about how frenetic or enthusiastic their movements get while they’re having fun. The headset also supports Oculus Air Link, which establishes that PC connection over Wi-Fi without the need for pesky wires!
4 Control The Interface With Voice Commands
Navigating the Quest’s interface with the included controls can be a hassle at times. Whether someone’s trying to scroll through a list or open a menu, things can get tricky. Thankfully, voice commands make this much easier.
From within the Oculus Quest, press the Oculus button on the right controller to reveal the pop-up menu. Select ‘Settings,’ select ‘Device,’ and then select the ‘Voice Commands’ option. Once enabled, this allows Quest users to perform certain actions using nothing but their voice — such as opening apps, turning the headset off, seeing who’s online, and more.
3 Record & Share Your Games For Others To See
While VR tends to be an isolating experience, that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to share those virtual adventures for other people to see. At any time, press the Quest button on the right controller and choose to ‘Record Video’ or ‘Take Photo.’ These videos and photos are saved locally on the Quest, allowing someone to share them with friends later on.
From that same menu, users can also choose the ‘Cast’ button to display their Quest game on a nearby computer or TV. So long as the device supports Chromecast, the Oculus Quest can connect to it and display what the player is seeing — great for when someone has friends/family over and wants to share their gameplay with everyone else in the room.
2 Explore The World Of Myst
Before there were expansive open-world games like Skyrim there was Myst, a point-and-click adventure game that first debuted in 1993 and launched a franchise of similar games. Its mystical island experience is the perfect setting for the immersive qualities of the Quest.
Original developer Cyan Worlds teamed up with Quest to release a new specially formatted VR version of the game, making the possibilities truly endless in an environment that already made it seem that way.
1 Experience Star Wars Like Never Before
Star Wars is one of the most iconic brands in all of pop culture. Everyone’s seen the movies and played the video games — but what about experiencing the world of Star Wars in virtual reality?
Oculus Quest makes this possible! Perhaps the most popular Star Wars VR experience is Vader Immortal, which tells a unique side-story about Darth Vader not seen anywhere else. After completing all three episodes of that, it’s also worth checking out Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge. This Star Wars VR title transports players to Batuu where they fight alongside iconic characters and “become a hero.”
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