Owners of Oculus Quest 2 can now go to Facebook directly while using the headset to perform certain tasks with the phrase “Hey Facebook”.
The new optional experimental feature is being released on the Oculus Quest 2 headsets starting today, with plans to expand the feature to the original Quest over time. Facebook says, “Quest doesn’t hear the activation word ‘Hey Facebook’ when the microphone is off or when the headset is hibernating or off.” You can also disable the feature once enabled, according to a company blog post.
The feature works with Facebook’s existing voice commands that began to be implemented last year. There is a complete list of them on the Oculus support website, but some of them include launching applications, recording the game or projecting its visualization.
From the Facebook post about the feature:
“You also have control over whether your voice commands are stored and potentially used to make the feature better. You can easily see, hear and delete your voice command activity at any time or even turn off voice storage in your Settings, while still taking advantage of the Voice Commands feature. It is our responsibility to protect your privacy, and you can learn more about how we do it here.
We are curious to know how our readers feel about this feature. Apple, of course, uses “Hey Siri” while Google makes you address the company itself with “Hey Google”, Microsoft uses “Hey Cortana” and Amazon uses the unusual word “Alexa” to activate its device constellation listening.