When you’re playing a VR game, the last thing you want to do is take off your headset to answer a message. But now that Facebook Messenger is coming to the Oculus Quest and Quest 2, you’ll get to chat with friends while remaining immersed in VR.
Facebook Messenger Arrives on Oculus
In a post on the Oculus Blog, Facebook announced that it’s bringing Messenger to Oculus. This means that if you’re logged in to your Quest or Quest 2 device with your Facebook account, you’ll get the chance to chat with your friends on Messenger.
Your friends don’t have to be in VR (or even have a VR device) in order for you to chat with them on Oculus. All they need is a Facebook account, and you’ll be able to reach out to them while you’re in VR.
The Messenger interface on Oculus looks relatively similar to what you see on the desktop site. While the list of chats appears on the left side of the window, your current chat appears on the right.
Writing a message in VR might sound a bit tricky. After all, typing out a long message could prove to be a tedious and painstakingly long process.
Luckily, Facebook has thought up a couple of ways to counteract this. Instead of typing out a message, you can use the voice-to-text feature or select a pre-typed message that Messenger provides.
You can also start an Oculus Party through Messenger, letting you and your friends enjoy the same game together. But if you just want to play a game with your Oculus friends instead, don’t worry. Messenger won’t be replacing Oculus Chats, and you won’t be forced to use Messenger.
In case your friend or family member wants to borrow your VR headset, you can always sign out of Messenger before handing over your headset. You can easily sign back in by selecting your Messenger profile on Oculus, and then entering your password.
Expanding Your Conversations on Oculus
Now that Messenger is on Oculus, you’re no longer limited to only chatting with friends who own a VR headset. You can now interact with any friends and family members on Facebook, whether they have a VR headset or not.
Better yet, the addition of Messenger saves you from constantly removing your headset to reply to messages. VR is all about immersion, and Messenger will only make it easier to maintain that immersion in your favorite VR universe.