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Meta’s got a new update for its Meta Quest VR headset, and it includes new features like the ability to change up your home environment’s Skybox with a custom image, get push notifications for 2D apps, and some other items like controller improvements. The features come in the new version 54 of the Quest’s software, which is rolling out now to all headsets.
The new Custom Skybox View feature lets you bring your own high-resolution images to your home environment as a VR backdrop and finally lets you teleport somewhere that’s not part of the default set. Unfortunately, it’s just experimental for now, so visiting friends aren’t going to be able to see what you have up — though, if someone decides to make their home a dark room lined with a menagerie of porcelain clowns, their Quest friends aren’t going to want to check that out.
Custom Skybox View is designed to accept 360-degree JPG or PNG images with a 6144 x 3160 resolution. You can enable it by going to Experimental Settings > Personalization tab and then scrolling to the bottom of the Virtual Environment page.
The new 2D app notification feature enables push notifications from non-VR apps, like Messenger, to appear in the headset. Post-update, you’ll be prompted by the 2D app to enable notifications when you launch it. Compatible 2D apps will also now be able to appear in the Quick Actions menu, and its notifications can be detailed, like showing a photo of the Facebook user in a friend request notification or a sender’s text in Messenger.
You can also consolidate messages from the same source to have a more organized feel or just shush them all in Do Not Disturb mode. Follow requests will also now be grouped together at the top of your notifications.
There’s also a handful of other items added to v54 of the Meta Quest release. The update includes some tweaks to the Meta Quest controller that should improve the accuracy of tracking and make playing Beat Saber less frustrating.
Some other items include Physical Space setting consolidation, avatar mirror availability in more environments, the integration of filter / sort apps in App Library into search, and improvements to the headset’s ability to remember boundaries. And the headset’s Light theme has graduated from experimental to the main system settings — a move the new Custom Skybox View feature might make if it gets popular enough.
