Oculus Link allows Oculus Quest to become a PC VR headset by tethering to a VR ready PC. While Oculus sells its own (quite expensive) Oculus Link cable, any appropriately high performance USB 3.0 cable will work. Here’s an option for a cable and extender which can get you even more length than the official cable at less than half the cost.

Image courtesy Oculus

Oculus designed its own Oculus Link cable so that it would be long, light, and thin. Granted, beyond its $80 price tag it’s virtually impossible to buy right now because of manufacturing shortages related to the Coronavirus outbreak. Luckily, there’s an alternative cable for Oculus Quest which, while not quite as thin, is longer, more affordable, and available today.

We’ve had success using Quest and Oculus Link on PC with this cable and active USB extender which achieves 26 feet.

At $34 and 26 feet, this combo is $46 cheaper than the official Oculus Link cable and 10 feet longer.

SEE ALSO
How to Tell if Your PC is Ready for Oculus Link & Air Link

Oculus Link is still in beta, but it works well enough to turn Quest into a full featured PC VR headset which can play Oculus PC and SteamVR games. You will, of course, need a VR capable PC (see here to find out if you’ve got the required hardware).

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Ben Lang
Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • mellott124

    I’m assuming it works?

    • aasdfa

      “We’ve had success using Quest and Oculus Link on PC with this cable and active USB extender which achieves 26 feet.”

      idk if you’re a troll, but i dont think theyd post this if it didnt work….

  • Shy Guy

    The problem I see with this solution, is that the active extender block is going to be underfoot, just begging to be stepped on and broken, and also dragging around with you as you move.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      Isn’t that the same with the regular cable? I’ve bought myself a cheap cable management set, the kiwi v2 silent VR cables on aliexpress, and they work very well with my Vive Pro, I’m using only 1 at the moment, and they keep your cables pretty well up.

      • Shy Guy

        The regular cable is one piece, without a chunky lump right in the middle underfoot (10ft + 16ft). I haven’t seen the official Link cable, but I would assume the active part is at one or both of the ends, meaning the trailing part of the cable is just thin cable with no obstructions. With these two cables, for a 6ft person, the bulky join is going to be a few feet away from your feet, just in the right place to be stepped on. If it was 16ft + 10ft it would be better, as you’d have the full 5m cable from the headset like the Vive, up to the link box. But this way it’s only 10ft (3.3m) to the join. Still, can’t complain too much for $34.

        • Andrew Jakobs

          But that’s what the cable system is for, keeping tha cable up in the air.

          • Shy Guy

            Wouldn’t the join get stuck in the pulleys? I’ve bought a set for my Vive cable but not set it up yet, as my space is a bit awkward with the PC in the next room.

          • Mario Planta

            Not sure if you guys know this but you don’t actual need a cable. You just need to buy the virtual desktop app to allow you to stream steam and rift games from your PC to your headset. Easy to set up. Changed my VR life

          • Layarion

            So, the Quest2 can only do 1200mpbs at it’s best with wireless, because it’s a 2×2 wifi chip. USB3.0 can do 5000mbps, though USB2.0 can only do 480mbps. Anyway, if you don’t need a high resolution and high framerate, this 1200mbps limitation is generally fine for content that’s 1080-1440p.

  • Gerald Terveen

    how I have been doing it for months now (added a powered usb3 hub to the mix and got an extra 0.5m and it added connection stability as well as better charging).
    still tempted about something lighter, but I think the additional length is worth more.

    • ShotgunEmmet

      Is the powered hub additional to the two cables suggested?
      If so what was the change in performance?

      • Gerald Terveen

        Yes, with just the two cables I had connection drops and after adding the powered hub and connecting it to the pc and then the Quest to the hub they stopped.
        Also the Quest charges just fine now, so I never run out of power when using it (never have done a true marathon though – a few hours and it was always above 80%).

        • Fenwick

          Which hub did you use, if I might ask?

          • Gerald Terveen

            It’s an old 7 port Uspeed USB3 hub that no longer is sold on Amazon. So I am afraid I am of little help there.

  • CampofMusic Gaming

    i can confirm i have something similar its really great, but now i use partylink 5 meter

  • SomeOne

    Pedant alert: Terribly misleading article title. When reading, I thought a 26 foot length was an extremely odd one for a cable, and wondered why the active extender would be separate from this…

    Shouldn’t the title be:
    You can get 26 feet of Oculus Link cable, including an active extender, for $34

    ?

  • Smokey_the_Bear

    VR with a cable, Welcome to 2016!

    • Lulu Vi Britannia

      Wired VR will never disappear. Many people make the false assumption that wires are not as good as wireless, when actually, both systems have their pros and cons.

      Wireless PCVR has latency and visual compression, which make the experience objectively worse than wired PC. One can argue that the experience only gets better with the network quality, but while it’s true, it also means that the quality of the experience will depend on the network: if you have internet slowdowns, BOOM, the experience gets horrible.
      Also, the fact that you have to charge the battery is an undeniable inconvenience of any wireless system.

      Wireless standalone VR is much more interesting, but since it uses mobile components, it’s not powerful enough to eliminate wired PC.
      Then again: there’s the battery.

      Wired PC VR has the cable, which is inconvenient indeed, but on the other hand, it has the power of a PC, without visual artifacts, without latency, without network dependency.

      Wired PC VR will never disappear, just like wired headphones will never disappear, just like wired PCs will never disappear. Wires aren’t worse than wireless, they’re just two different systems.

      • kontis

        60Ghz wireless can achieve latency indistinguishable from wired connection.
        Wifi has too low bandwidth so the compression causes a lot of delay.

        • Lulu Vi Britannia

          Correction: 60GHz, when it arrives, will achieve the same latency as CURRENT wired systems. But by the time it arrives, wires will be more efficient as well.
          Wires will always have better performance, and even in the unlikely event that wireless catches it up, it will still have the other flaws (need to charge the battery, visual compression, network dependency, …).

          • anon

            until graphene batteries come out and then battery life become a non issue

          • Raidho Coaxil

            The simple truth about wires is that it’s a dedicated data channel with very little external interference (depending on shielding class) so data goes through it unimpeded. Radiospace is shared with literally everything in the universe that produces signal strong enough to reach you, so there’s always a ton of interference which forces slower bit rate and repeated transmissions due to packet loss (corruption), it’s why wireless transmission is so slow compared to data cables.

      • Sweetendmilk

        Thanks LuLu! Great sum up. I have to say I am old school and love the wires as well. Wires for me always give better stability.

        So I just need to know the best extension wires to get because the whole VR thing is very new and they are for my niece. Neither of us know nothing about any of this but she wants them n her TT will get them…

        Can you tell me which wires to get?

        • Lulu Vi Britannia

          Honestly? A few months ago, I’ve gone wireless, and… don’t do wires. I’m serious, my comment has been 100% debunked, lol.

          If you want to offer VR to your niece, better give her a Quest 2. It’s wireless by default, and it has absolutely none of the wireless issues I mentionned since it’s not connected to anything (it’s “standalone”). Well, it does run on a battery so you have to make up for it with an external battery, so that point still stands.
          It can also be connected to a PC wirelessly, and although it is a BIT less stable sometimes, most of the time it is perfect too, no latency and few compression (which are the big issues of wireless tech).

          Honestly, although wired VR is great too… wireless VR is ready, and it’s brillant. Don’t do wires.

  • JB1968

    It’s funny how all those Quest users hating tethered vr are now spending money to actually get bound to their PCs and be able play some real good vr stuff but with latency and compressed ugly image. LOL

    • Mario Planta

      Umm oh hey, I’ll correct you again ;) Quest users are using virtual desktop to stream steam games. No cables, using a better GPU than your PSVR ;) LOL

      • JB1968

        Virtual desktop? No thanks, I don’t wan’t to puke from the bad framerate and even more uglier compression artefacts caused by high latency Quest wifi streaming LOL

        • Mario Planta

          You must have really bad internet buddy. No bad artifacts and 72 fps. Keep talking on stuff you no nothing about. It’s hilarious how ignorant/arrogant you are.

          • andy

            x2 virtual desktop can easily stream better quality/fps than the quest normally can do. In my opinion there is no need to “link” people with problems have poor internet or a computer that simply isn’t up to the task!

          • JB1968

            You have to really enjoy your Quest :)) Unlike you I have no reason to argue with or insult your persona because of that. I understand Quest is not bad entry to VR for beginners so I wish you good luck and hope you’ll get a chance to access better VR hardware in the upcoming years.

          • Mario Planta

            And I hope you’ll eventually ditch your PSVR for a better untethered system that can run off a better GPU than the playstation’s, Quest isn’t going anywhere :)

          • JB1968

            I don’t have PSVR (my kids have it though). I’m on Valve Index at the moment. It’s almost same crap as Quest though in terms of product quality, still looking for real next gen gear….maybe PSVR2 in the near future? :-)

          • YallSomeGoofyMfs

            Yall are some salty mfs like damn chill tf out. Acting like some grade school headass. It’s a vr people can like what they want and not get criticized to stfu and keep to yourselves.

          • sweetendmilk

            Ha, you guys are funny! Although I enjoyed reading your comments, I was still trying to find the best way to extend the life of the Oculus quest 2.

            Want to know more about these cables, are they worth it?

          • Mario Planta

            If you’re looking to extend the life, I used a battery pack within a phone holder that you can attach to the back of the headset that extends the battery life x3. The added benefit of doing it this way is that it acts as a counterweight to the front part of the headset. I find myself able to play games longer and more comfortably.

        • ribbitz

          Troll JB1968 who doesn’t even have a stake in the device being discussed comes here to add negativity to other people’s visit. Block him, never ever see his garbage again. Problem solved.

      • Stevoisiak

        I love Virtual Desktop, but it doesn’t work with every setup. It works pretty well for me personally, but I’m not able to get below 30ms of latency, which is noticeable in rhythm games like Beat Saber. This is with a GTX 1070 connected via Ethernet to Google WiFi.

        • Mario Planta

          30 ms of latency isn’t bad

  • John G

    Wouldn’t an active extender add some latency?

  • Stephen Cowen

    I did purchase this. It did not work reliably at all. I then tried Virtual Desktop which was far more reliable (but not 100%), and I was super impressed with the low latency. Overall, it’s a hassle either way, and life is simpler by just staying in the Questverse and ditching the PC.

    • Layarion

      and cementing facebooks hold over you.

  • NewTwoVR

    The amazon reviews for the Usb-C -> Male Usb-3.0

    aren’t the best for tethered VR gaming with your pc.
    One review states that he would rather return the product,
    but it works just fine for transferring SideQuest files.