Oculus Quest 2

 Oculus Quest 2

I'm a tech guy so my house is filled with wires, wires everywhere.  Speaker, Hdmi, Cat5, Usb, and other various cables are infused throughout my house. I probably have a mile of cables if I stacked them end to end.  In storage I have some S-video cables for my old video camera that I for some reason still have from 20 years ago.  So I'm getting a little tired of wires.  That may be the reason that I got the Quest 2 even though I have 3 other VR headsets that I sparingly use. 

I like VR and the experiences it gives you, but I hate the cable as it always gets in the way.  In my racing rig with the motion setup I could never get the cable in the right position, I would move in some direction which would cause a slight tug on the cable that would take me out of the experience. Even for fully stationary games you can feel the weight of the cable pulling down on the headset.  

I never messed with the original Quest for some reason, but I decided to get the Quest 2 and I'm glad I did. It's really an incredible self contained VR experience for $300, actually $350, as you really need the deluxe head strap for extra comfort.  Playing VR wirelessly is amazing and really takes it to another level.  Setup is a breeze and moving from room to room is effortless which is really what VR needs to make it a mainstream product.  

There are a couple of downsides.   Facebook integration is the biggest one for most people as it requires you to link your device to a facebook account.  I already use facebook so it wasn't that big of a deal to me although I don't like them gathering even more information about me. The next downside is that the Quest 2 could be a bit more comfortable, it's a bit front heavy, but if you get the deluxe head strap it makes for a comfier fit.  There have been many reports of the deluxe headset band cracking so that's something to look out for.  The battery life is not the longest at around 2-3 hours which is fine for me since I rarely play longer than an hour and a half, but they do make a strap with an extra battery that extends the life to around 5-6 hours.  I was impressed with the internal speakers on the unit as they are actually better than the Rift S, but if you want the best audio experience you need to use headphones.  

There is one other huge potential downside, not all games will run natively on the Quest, but you can use a link cable connected to your PC to play Rift or Steam VR games.  This is a bummer since you are once again saddled with a cable, but there is an alternative, Virtual Desktop Streaming.  Using the $20 Virtual Desktop app and the free sidequest app you can stream all the VR games from your PC to the Quest 2 and they look better than using the link cable.  It's amazing and I'm not sure why this method isn't being touted more since it's a pure wireless solution.      

I've played Half-life Alyx this way and it looks amazing, it's not quite as good as my Rift S but it's pretty close.  There may be some games where streaming isn't supported, but so far all the games I've tried have worked great and that's using the 5G band of my AT&T supplied router. 

So far I'm impressed with the Quest 2 and think it's a great time to get into VR if you haven't already.