Oculus Quest

The first-generation Oculus Quest is a virtual reality headset developed by Oculus (now Reality Labs), a brand of Facebook, Inc., and released on May 21, 2019. Similar to its predecessor, Oculus Go, it is a standalone device, that can run games and software wirelessly under an Android-based operating system. It supports positional tracking with six degrees of freedom, using internal sensors and an array of cameras in the front of the headset rather than external sensors. The cameras are also used as part of the safety feature "Passthrough", which shows a view from the cameras when the user exits their designated boundary area known as "Guardian". A later software update added "Oculus Link", a feature that allows Oculus Rift-compatible software and games to be streamed to the headset from a PC over USB. The Oculus Quest received praise for its price and convenience, and for having improved graphical fidelity and tracking over Oculus Go, but was panned for its front-heavy build and downgraded graphics quality over PC-based VR games. At launch, it also faced criticism for being limited to software available on the Oculus Store, and not having backwards compatibility with Oculus Go software. However, the introduction of Oculus Link led to reappraisals of the Quest, with critics praising the device's increased flexibility, and foreseeing the Quest as the main Oculus product line going forward. A successor, the Oculus Quest 2, was released in 2020.