Oculus has now confirmed the launch the ‘Rift Core 2.0’ update in public beta; it’s hitting Rift headsets December 6th. The anticipated updated will bring a major overhaul to ‘Home’—the place you see in the headset when you’re not inside of a VR game—as well as ‘Dash’, a revamped universal menu which also lets you run traditional desktop PC apps in VR.

Update (12/03/17): Oculus has confirmed in a recent tweet that it’s Core 2.0 beta is officially coming to Rift December 6th.

Follow the instructions below to download the beta branch, which should automatically update on Wednesday morning Pacific Time. You can revert tot he stable branch at any time by toggling off the option.

Original article (11/28/17): Oculus announced today on their official blog that the Rift Core 2.0 beta is coming “soon,” and with it will come an updated Oculus Desktop app which the company says offers an improved layout, now with a Wish List feature for marking games and apps that interest you. The Wish List will offer notifications when saved apps go on sale.

Those excited for the virtual desktop functionality, which promises to allow users to run traditional desktop PC apps inside the Rift at any time, even while inside VR apps, will need to update to Windows 10. Users still running Windows 7 and 8 will still be able to use Dash to browse their VR app library and for some other functionality, but won’t be able to use ‘Oculus Desktop’ virtual computing function, or run Dash as an overlay on top of VR apps, the company says. Oculus indicates this is for performance reasons.

Image courtesy Oculus

Players will be able to download the Rift Core 2.0 beta automatically once it’s available by opting into the ‘Public Test Channel’ through the current Oculus Desktop App (Settings > Beta > Public Test Channel switch). The company also suggests updating your video drivers for optimal performance with the update.

The blog post also shared several new images showing various Home spaces:

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Image courtesy Oculus
Image courtesy Oculus
Image courtesy Oculus
Image courtesy Oculus
Image courtesy Oculus

The Rift Core 2.0 experience is built primarily around Touch, and while Oculus says “most, but not all” previously support functionality will work with the gamepad, the company says you should use Touch if you want to “take full advantage of all the features in Rift Core 2.0,” including customizing your Home space.

SEE ALSO
Oculus Home's Big Update Will Only Be Semi-social to Start
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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."
  • Firestorm185

    It’s probably not coming this soon, but I can always hope it’ll be out by the second on my birthday. xDDD

    • Firestorm185

      I’ll take the sixth! Woohoo!

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  • PJ

    This looks amazing

  • AndyP

    Oculus Iron Man Interface?

  • GrangerFX

    Oculus should support Windows MR headsets natively now that the Windows MR SDK is available and the headsets are released. Right now having to go through two levels of abstraction (Oculus in Steam and Steam in MR) is not working well.

    • J.C.

      Lol just like they should be supporting Vive. Keep dreaming.

      • Suitch

        They do, as they won’t block ReVive and ReVive is ‘confirmed’ working with WMR. Y’all need to stop being butthurt over Oculus’s decision to own a platform. Just because it is better, with better content, doesn’t make it more evil. And BEFORE you say it doesn’t have better content, then why in the hell would you be making an ordeal about it? GG.

        • killdozer

          Not blocking revive is not “support”

          • Suitch

            They can’t support variable hardware with their platform. They are designing specifically for their device. The vibe and windows VR couldn’t utilize Dash without finger detection and the knuckle controllers are nowhere within sight.

          • killdozer

            revive has Touch emulation for a year now, how do you think people are playing rift games with wands?

          • Suitch

            You can ask people with revive about the limitations, such as myself. It can’t do the pointing thing well.

          • killdozer

            Yes yes, its such a complex task, pointing finger, only done by Touch(TM)

          • Suitch

            Until knuckles release, yes. Go home child.

          • killdozer
      • care package

        Nah forget Vive. Just Windows MR.

  • Justos

    cant wait!

  • Edward Morgan

    Our frothing demand for this update increases! (with no apologies to IGN)

  • something useful, lets see in December

  • Walextheone

    Also, IIRC stuff right, they said something about text being rendered differently (earlier in the pipeline?) to make it super sharp.

  • impurekind

    It’s looking like it could be very cool indeed. i just hope it is, and also that it doesn’t end up becoming a bit too convoluted and for nerds/geeks only with all the customization and stuff.

  • Suitch

    YES! DECEMBER 6th!

  • impurekind

    I’m looking forward to this. I really hope it’s as good as it appears to be.

  • Maxime Pare

    I would love a recenter button on the desktop app…asking people who never tried VR to recenter their view can be tiring sometimes, older people and kids have a tough time doing it…With a recenter button on your PC you could just told them to hold still and recenter remotely

  • PianoMan

    Question: How do you type? Virtual keyboard or fumbling for a mechanical one?

    • Armando Tavares

      That’s one of the MAJOR issues VR as to solve. This all ‘waving your hands around’ wont cut it when you want to reply to an email (for example).

      To be honest I don’t even like these controllers. I want a mouse and a way to input text. Everyone can learn to type without looking at the keyboard.

      For the novices, voice to text come to mind. It’s well implemented and accurate (enough) in the smartphone industry.

      • sdjkhg
        • Armando Tavares

          Yeah I already knew about that One and even if it is a good effort in the right direction it’s not enough. It’s VIVE locked.
          I want something as universal as a keyboard or a mouse is.

      • Dave

        I think VR has a solution for this by spawning a virtual keyboard. The issue being the hand controls themselves. The Touch controller is actually better than most as for the most part an index finger works but I think you’ll need something like a haptic glove which can have more dexterity that the Touch controller and then I think it will feel very natural to type in VR.

        • Armando Tavares

          This kind of controller wont EVER be as good as your hands to type. Right now, the only way I see we can ‘type’ and stay as productive as we are now (sort of) is voice recognition. Most of it already exists. Just add a few commands and you’re set. All you need is a run of the mill headset.

          If we keep waiting for some next gen, new tech ‘thingy’ it’ll take forever, it’ll cost an arm and a leg AND it wont be as good a 5$ keyboard.

  • Luke

    when will the beta ends?

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