The Meta Quest 2, formally known as the Oculus
Quest 2, is the most popular wireless VR headset on the market today and one of the most affordable
at $299 US dollars. But what exactly do you do with the Quest 2? Once you get one, what are
its best features? Are there any downsides with getting a Quest 2? And then does the novelty
of the Quest 2's VR experience…does that wear off after six months enough to make it so getting
one in the first place isn’t really worth it? Well, I'm gonna answer all of those questions
and more. And first, let's start with that last one. While the novelty with the Quest 2 for
me has worn off a bit over the past 6 Months, I’m surprised to say that I’ve actually
been using it about 2-3 times a week over the course of 6 months simply because
the Quest 2 offers an immersive experience like no other device I currently own and
has a fitness component to it as well which makes playing a game on it a great way to
take a break and get that heart rate up. So yes, I do think the Quest 2 has been worth
it. Now what exactly do I mean by an immersive experience? Well for those who are unfamiliar
with VR, which stands for virtual reality, when you put on a VR headset, like the Quest 2, its
screens will take up your entire field of view. You can look around, down, up, anywhere you
want, and you’re entirely immersed in whatever the Oculus’ display is showing you. So game
characters are now in their true-to-life height, so when Darth Vader for example started walking
towards me in Vader Immortals, I got this feeling of “Holy S**t, this guy is tall” that I
haven’t had in a Star Wars video game before. And picking up a lightsaber in VR,
and wielding it like a jedi, it’s as close as I’ve ever felt to what
being a Jedi would actually feel like. Now the Quest records videos by
default in 1:1 ratio and not in 4k, plus this footage will often look a bit
more shaky because it’s capturing slight hand and head movements, which isn’t how it
looks with the headset is on, everything is pretty smooth most of the time, so just keep that
in mind as look at this footage I’ve captured. Now visuals are only half
the story with the Quest 2, sound and their controllers make up
the other part of the VR experience. The Quest has speakers built into the headset
that emit sound just outside of your ears, so they're obviously not noise
canceling or anything like that, but for what they are, they're actually
pretty decent. Decent enough to the point where I haven't felt the need to rush out
and go buy a dedicated set of headphones, which a few companies like Logitech makes for
the Oculus. The sound on the Oculus isn’t going to produce a ton of bass, but its clear and
crisp and most importantly, it's 3D sound. So just like spatial audio with Apple devices and 3D sound for Sony's headsets for
the PlayStation 5. Which by the way, we have also done a long-term review off. So
if you want to see videos like that, make sure you subscribe to the channel and check out the
link in the description below for that review. The Quest’s 3D audio can make it sound like
something is coming up behind you and that specific ability helps keep you even more
immersed in what you’re doing on the Quest. The Quest’s controllers are what
allows you to interact with the 3D virtual world you’re immersed in. Whether thats
wielding a lightsaber or picking up objects, with the multiple triggers, buttons
and joycons found on each controller, they allow you to do quite a bit. Each
controller is powered by a single AA battery And the battery life has lasted me throughout
the six-month testing period. And I've only just now started to see notifications in the Quest
to replace the batteries for the controllers. And I like that when you have the headset
on, its easy to check the battery level of your controllers either
in settings or looking down at your controllers with the headset on.
The Quest will generate a virtual version of your physical controller with the battery
level of each controller displayed on top of them. Now I did run into an issue with my right
controller over the past 6 months after it accidentally slide off my couch onto a
hardwood floor and I noticed the battery compartment door developed this creaking noise,
which is super annoying when you’re playing. Luckily there’s an easy fix for that, I
just folded up a piece of paper multiple times and wedged it into the battery
compartment and that elimited my issue. And speaking of battery life for the
Quest 2 headset, it's rated for two to three hours of battery life. And typically, in
my testing I've seen closer to two hours. And for a gaming device that battery life may seem
a bit short and when I first used the Quest, I did run out of battery one or two times, but
that was mainly because the headset was new, and VR is one of the coolest experiences
I've ever had with a piece of technology. So, when I first got this headset, I was
using it a ton, but as the weeks went on, I found I was using the Quest 2 in short 30
to 45 minute bursts. Because by that point, I'll likely be at risk of breaking a sweat or
I'm tired or just want to give my eyes a rest. Depending on what you're doing with your
headset, like if you enable the 120 Hertz option, the headset can run a bit warm which is going to
cause you to sweat faster. And speaking of sweat, if you’re planning to share your headset with
others in your home, make sure you install the rubber standard facial interface on the headset to
prevent sweat from seeping into the foam cousins. Now, you can develop motion sickness with this
headset and again it all depends on what you're actually doing with the Quest 2, a bit of
advice here though, if you do develop any motion sickness or you feel nauseous with
the headset on, immediately take it off. Trust me, you do not want to try to push
through, it'll only get worse and it's gonna make you feel nauseous for the rest of the day
if you don’t take the headset off immediately, and this is why I will typically stick
to experiences with the Quest 2 where I am just standing up, I'm stationary and things
like with Beat Saber are just moving at me, I find with those experiences I don't develop
motion sickness versus other experiences where you're on like a virtual plane or roller coaster
or you're having to turn your head and really move around a space a lot, those are the experiences
where I've found I get more motion sick. Overall, I'd say the Quest’s headset in terms
of comfort is pretty okay, like I can put this on for 30 to 45 minutes easily and it's perfectly
comfortable. Even though this thing actually doesn't weigh that much, there's still probably
some room to take some of the weight out of it, that would help with overall comfort,
especially if you're playing for a long time. And another thing that they did to make it
even more comfortable for players is they include a glasses spacer that you can insert
into the headset. It’s pretty easy to install, you just pull off the headset black plastic part, then insert the glasses spacer and then put
the black plastic headband piece back in. Meta did a really good job making Quest 2 easy to
set up. I was surprised how smooth the tracking of the controllers and 3D effects were when I first
put the headset on. The joycons on the controllers were intuitive to use to setup WiFi on the headset
& the controllers overall are very responsive. Alright, now the next question I had when I got
this headset and yes, I know it still looks goofy. That's why I put it back on for your
entertainment. The next question I had is, okay. I'm ready to play VR…how do I
keep myself from crashing into the TV? Well Meta of course thought of this and
developed the guardian boundary system, which basically allows you to tell the headset
where the floor is, and paint the space you want to play in on your floor and boom, you’re good to
go. Meta also has recently released a feature that allows you to mark the walls and furniture
in your room But I found when you do this, it'll cause the Quest 2 to be a bit more laggy
than you want. So, I've turned that feature off and I just use the roomscale Guardian boundary,
which allows you to just move around the space that you select. You also have the option
to choose a stationary boundary as well, and you can even mark your real couch
to be a part of your Guardian play area, so you’ll be able to find your couch in VR and
sit down on it with the headset on, which is pretty useful if you want to do things like browse
the game store or watch a YouTube video in VR. I was also surprised to find out that not only
will the Quest 2 save your guardian boundary, but let's say you walk into
another room where you have one saved. it’ll bring that one up as
well which is pretty impressive. And its easy to get your bearings in your
room with passthrough mode, you just double tap the right part of the headset to turn on the
Move’s cameras so you can see around your room. So that's a little bit about how the Quest
works but what exactly have I been using it for over the past six months? Well, I've used it
mainly for gaming. I found the Quest 2 to be a great device to get my heart rate up, playing
a game like Beat Saber where your controllers become light sabers that you use to slash through
boxes timed to music. It gets my heart rate up, is fun, and keeps me coming back to the quest
every week. Or even the light saber dojo mode of Vader Immortals is something I’ll get back
into from time to time to test my jedi skills. Oculus even has a calorie burn overlay which
you can turn on and when you look up in VR, it’ll tell you how many calories you’ve burned and
you can set calorie burn goals in the Oculus Move app & enable notifications to get notified in-game
when you’ve hit that goal. And there are a lot of fitness games that allow you to do even more
like Super Natural, one of the most popular, which allows you to do boxing, meditation, and
a similar saber game to beat saber, , but it costs $20 a month. Which is why I've stuck with
a game like Beat Saber, which still gets my heart rate up. You do have to pay to unlock songs with
Beat Saber but there's no monthly subscription. The Quest can also be quite fun when you have
people over as well. It’s easy to cast what the person is seeing on the Quest headset to
a Chromecast-enabled TV right from within the Quest’s share menu. Plus when I’ve been told
it’s hilarious to watch me flail my arms around with the headset on. What do you think? Let me
know in the comments how ridiculous this looks. Now, to share to an Apple TV, or another display
using Apple's Airplay. That's a bit more involved. you’ll have to cast to your iPhone and then
screen mirror the iPhone through AirPlay to stream the footage on an AirPlay display like my
Apple TV. Though I've noticed the performance you get on the TV is significantly worse compared
to casting directly from the headset to the TV. And if you're interested in upgrading your own TV
streaming experience, check out the links in the description below to reviews we've done on the
Chromecast with Google TV and the Apple TV 4K. So those are the killer apps that have kept me
coming back to the Quest over the past 6 Months, but what about downsides? I've actually
found quite a few. First, I was kind of surprised there aren't that many free trials
of games. So in order to try a game, you're typically going to need to purchase it. And then
for whatever reason, if you don't like it, you can return that game There are quite a few free
games and experiences on the Quest thankfully, but there are a lot of games that I want to try
out but not sure if I want to plunk down $30 dollars right away on. All games are purchased
through the Quest’s store but because the Quest 2’s OS is a forked version on Android, you can
sideload apps onto it through apps like SideQuest. I'm also surprised Meta hasn't released any
sort of Wii sports bundle-like game with a bunch of different cool sports games to try
out in VR, I think that would be really smart. Another downside with the Quest 2 is you currently
still need a Facebook login to use the device, however, the company has recently announced this
will no longer be the cast come August 2022, when you’ll be able to sign up for Meta accounts, bypassing Facebook accounts all together
and you’ll be able to create Meta accounts, something that is very difficult to do with
these devices being linked to Facebook accounts. Now, the last downside I found with
the Quest 2 is actually a downside for all of VR and that's you're
going to need space to be in VR, which often will involve moving furniture
if you're in a semi-cramp apartment. So, depending on how much space you have, this
could be a huge deal or no issue at all. So, that's been my experience with the Quest 2
over the past six months and what I've used it for. And overall, I think this is a pretty
good product for the money, even for me, where I only play a couple of games on it, Which
I should point out isn't outside the norm for me, I do the exact same thing with my PlayStation
5 and heck, I've even spent like $1,300 on a gaming PC just for a single game: Cities
Skylines. So, I may be a bit atypical when it comes to the way I game, But the Quest 2 over
the past six months, it's kept me coming back time and time again because of the immersive
experiences it can give you and no other product on the market today can deliver the
experiences the Quest 2 can at this price. Alright, so who do I think this device is
for? The Quest 2 is kinda the next generation of the Nintendo Wii, Playstation Move and
Xbox Connect. The Quest 2 is basically the next generation of that type of experience, but
way more immersive. Now yes, it's not as good for multiplayer with all of the players are
physically in the same room. Maybe we'll get there one day, but with VR but right now
since each headset costs $299 US dollars, it's a bit cost prohibitive to try and do that. The Quest 2 is also a great preview of future VR
tech & experience. After spending 6 months with the Meta Quest 2, I'm more enthusiastic about
VR and it’s potential than I was before I got the headset. I think VR will eventually
just be great at these four categories: Gaming Fitness, Entertainment, and
Social. In the short term today, I think the two killer applications the
Quest are gaming and fitness. And this is likely the area where you're going to see
competing headsets from Apple and Sony come in. Sony’s Playstation VR 2 will likely just be
gaming focused, but Apple’s is the one to watch and see if they can do what the Quest 2 does, but
better. The only caveat with that headset is it’s likely going to 3-4x as expensive as the Quest 2.
As for social experiences, there's the Horizons World app that’s free and allows you to hangout
with people from all around the world and play games, but overall I’d say it’s still very
early days for that type of experience. As for entertainment, you can download
the YouTube VR app onto the Quest, sit down on your couch and watch YouTube on a
virtual big screen, and this was honestly the most surprisingly thing I found with the Quest 2
and VR in general. This technology isn't actually that far off from being able to supplant the big
screen experience you get in a movie theater, minus the audience of course. Watching footage
from the Top Gun Maverick trailer on the big screen, it feels so similar to how the movie felt
like on the big screen. I think Meta or Apple or whoever else out there is making a headset just
needs to make a headset that's a bit lighter, more comfortable to wear for long periods of time,
like the duration of a movie or a binge watch and then they need to make the headset have
a retina display. So the resolution is better and it actually looks like you're looking at a
4K screen or better, and then be able to pair that headset with noise canceling over the
ear headphones that are comfortable and have spatial audio and boom, you've got a big screen
experience in VR with fantastic surround sound. Now if you've used a VR headset like the Quest 2
or another headset, or you own a VR headset like the Quest 2. Let me know down in the comments,
what you think the future of VR is going to be? Now as we release this video in mid-2022,
if you’re looking at getting a Quest 2, you can use the purchase links here in this
video to learn more. The next generation Quest 3 isn’t expected for at least another year Meta
is supposed to announce a high-end headset by the end of 2022 that might be called the Quest
Pro, with new AR and face-tracking capabilities, new controllers, graphics, and a higher resolution
display, but it’ll likely cost more than $1,000 US dollars. If you've got the money to spend and want
better VR hardware, it might be worth it to wait for this headset to come out, But for the average
user I think that's just looking to get into VR, I think you're still better off going with a Quest
2. Now, if you have any further questions about the Quest 2, leave them in the comments below
and we'll answer them there. And while you're down there, hit that thumbs up button if you like
this video and found it helpful and subscribe to the channel for more long-term reviews of tech
products and gaming products, like this one. And if you're looking for what to watch next,
check out some of our other long-term reviews of gaming hardware, like our review of the
Sony PlayStation 5, which you can get to by clicking on the video to my right. For 6
Months Later, I'm Josh Teder. Thanks for watching.
