 You know what? This dinky little standalone VR headset running mobile hardware just might be the ultimate must have VR device. You see, the Oculus Quest came out almost a year ago as the first standalone VR headset to support full room scale experiences. And we did a video about it where we called it the Nintendo Switch of VR. Unfortunately, like the Switch, the Quest's game store was completely locked down. So your choices were limited to Quest exclusives or those titles that were lucky enough to be ported over. But that is all changing. It seems like the Quest is the favorite Oculus child of Facebook, Oculus Facebook. Because in September 2019, Facebook announced two new killer features. Oculus Link, which lets you play desktop VR games on the Quest and built-in controller free hand tracking. So we got ourselves a Link compatible cable, which was a journey in and of itself. And we're gonna try it out today. Comparing the Quest to the desktop bound Rift S. I mean, imagine guys playing desktop VR games on a Quest. Yeah, you've actually been able to do that for a while now. So, well wait, why do we need all this then? Boy, you're gonna find out. Ridge Wallet is the sleek way to keep wallet bulge down with its compact frame and RFID blocking inner plates. Use offer code Linus to save 10% and get free worldwide shipping at the link below. You don't need these anymore. You're free. My hands are small, but powerful. Wow. So like normal. That is actually not bad. It's a cool experience the first time you try it. What do you do? Do you just like, like? Yeah, so you pinch. So when you start to pinch, there a pointer shows up so you can like point at things. And then when you tap your finger and- The circle gets smaller and smaller. And you tap your finger and the circle gets smaller and bigger. Yep. Wow. Wow. I would rather just use a controller. I can tell you that already. Yes. But we're gonna go into some experiences that you can only really do with your hands. I mean, that's not necessarily true. Yeah. That's not like a- No. No, okay, different experiences. This is a beta. So- This is not beta. This is alpha. This is alpha. Might as well be alpha. I could say. Hey, Cubism. Hey. I'm, oh, wow. That was just to launch the game. You Cubismed it. Oh, wow. Yeah, I want easy. Okay. Oh my God. This is, this would, this is a nightmare. Oh no, really? Yeah, it's terrible. It's terrible. I was barely able to line up a thing, let alone all this crap it wants me to put into place right now. But don't you feel like you're in the matrix a little bit? If the matrix like sucked and wasn't convincing at all, I guess. The matrix gen one. The matrix one, the machines are still like Game Boys. Come on. Oh, well, okay, somehow we're, yeah, I'm done with this. This is- Okay, all right, all right. I wish this was better. So ultimate verdict on hand tracking. It's not ready. It's a cool demo, but it's- No additional hardware. Yeah. It was a software update that made it, that gave a completely new feature. Yeah, so it's better than, you know, a kick in the grind. Hand tracking wasn't as much of a hit. Yeah. But the other new feature, Oculus Link. Yes. Wasted a little bit of time with this, trying to make it work with the built-in, with the cable that's included with the headset. Doesn't work. Doesn't work. You have to buy a special cable or you have a high quality USB 3 cable on hand. Yeah, so the thing is USB 3 cables, type C cables have a lot of different internal configurations. Yes. They can be Thunderbolt or they can be charging only or they can carry some data, like just USB 2 data, or they can carry USB 3 data. There's a lot of complexity there. It's very confusing. I ended up ordering one on Amazon. Yeah. The Anker Powerline Plus. Okay. And that ended up working. So that's what we've got hooked up here. Nice cable management, Riley. Wow, thanks. Starting the output failed. So both GeForce Experience, like ShadowPlay and OBS, have flipped out when we've tried to record anything. I wonder if that has to do with how it is streaming the desktop experience over to the headset, because we have determined after some Googling that yes, in fact, it is all carried over USB and we are in fact using the power of the PC right now. I believe it's a hybrid situation. I don't know. It feels just a little jello-y. Did you have jello for lunch? Yeah, move your sabers around. Show your force ability. This is absolutely not indistinguishable from a real PC experience. Beat Saber time is over, teenagers. All right, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. I'm done, dad. Turn that VR headset off and put on this other VR headset. So what you are now wearing is the Oculus Rift S, which for those who don't know, is the desktop focused Oculus. So you need a PC to run this thing. You don't need a PC to run the Quest. I definitely am not getting that jello-y feel. I don't know how to describe the jello-yness other than to say that it felt just a little bit not quite synced right. Like it didn't feel like leg. It almost felt like leg with leg compensation. Like it just felt a little wrong. Right, right, right. It's like there's probably some code stuff going on in there to make up for the fact that it's not as much of a system that's designed for PC VR. Like this just definitely feels a little more accurate. Okay, all right, that's enough of that. Stop it now. We're gonna try Boneworks using the other method of playing PC VR games on Quest. Okay, so I'm just gonna lose this then. Which is streaming them wirelessly. Oh, interesting. It might make you appreciate Oculus Link a little more. So take that, you'd... Okay, that's one way of putting it. People who own Oculus Quests, who have been watching this video up to now have probably been watching with a little bit of frustration because you have actually been able to stream PC VR games to the Quest almost since day one. Not since day one, but a few months after it came out, they figured it out how to do it. So there's a few different ways you can do it. ALVR, VR Ridge. What we used in this instance is Virtual Desktop, which allows you to stream Steam VR to the Quest and Oculus games using Revive. So you can open Oculus games and Steam VR games all on the Quest without actually streaming. Wait, how do I actually hack you? You are using the wrong, you're on Oculus Link right now. I want you to stream. Okay, wait. This might be disorienting. Okay. Ah! No, I'm just kidding. I just unplugged you from the matrix. Okay. Oh, wow, this is... Whoa. It's kind of all over the place. Sometimes it's really great. And I'm like, wow, I can't tell the difference. And then other times, whoa, look at that one. There's definitely a bit of delay, but imagine this is you're streaming from your PC to your Quest right now. This is all wireless. Right. So there's a little bit of delay, but I mean... The video feed is surprisingly good. It's mostly the controller tracking that feels a little bit chop-tastic. That's what I found as well. That delay on the release is pretty bad. What's the excuse for that though? I don't understand it. Well, you're wireless. Yeah, but the video feed, you'd think that... Oh, wow. Oh, that's crazy. I moved too fast and there's a black thing you can see. That happened to me once too. That happened to me once too. That was pretty funny. Yeah, you just moved too fast. Yeah, yeah. It's just only rendering exactly as much as it has to, like exactly the viewport. It runs out of picture. It's more than foveated rendering. Okay, that's there. And then... Yeah, just sneak it in there. Even though these wireless options have existed since the Quest came out almost, this new solution appears to be a lot better. Yeah, this is a lot better. I would say that's my experience as well. Oh, no. Oh, wow. Okay, so the black edge of the frame, it's still there, but you gotta move really fast to see it. So just because the data rate is so much higher, it's able to keep up better. So that's interesting. I mean, without actually knowing how the pipeline works or anything, I wonder how much of this experience is running on the Quest versus the graphics card. I think very little is running on the Quest now. Yeah, but you just had the exact same graphical problem that you had. No, but I don't think that's a graphical problem. I think that's just a function of streaming the data over a data connection rather than over a display link. That delay is still there. Wait, really? Yeah. It's still the same? Hmm, maybe a little better. Is that just, are you talking about the delay between the arrow leaving your bow and getting to the enemy? Because that's just like, that's how bows and arrows work. I mean, Riley, can you see the screen right now? Yes. Okay, so you can hear it. See that? Yeah. Yeah, there's a delay. It's definitely not as much as when it was wireless, but it's there. It's there for sure. For sure, but nice shots. Way better than wireless. So the last thing that I wanted to check is if I was imagining the jello-iness. So I'm running Beat Saber natively on the Quest now, and it's not here. It feels right again. Like I'm back to being impressed by it. But here's the thing. Nobody was ever pitching the Quest as the be all end all greatest VR experience on the market. No. It's always gonna be a compromise. And you know what? I still like it. I like it even more. So now you've got options. You can run it natively if you're just playing basic, simple games that can run on mobile hardware, or you can run it wirelessly. I don't know if wireless technology gets a lot better. Or with Oculus Link, now you can play games from any game library you want. Yeah, there's a little bit of jello-iness and there's some weird interface delay that I noticed in the lab. They're not bad enough that for most users, they're gonna say, oh, you know what? I should have spent two and a half times as much on a valve index or whatever else. Right. And that's really what I thought was so amazing about this experience with the Oculus Link is that the Quest is a standalone headset that you can also now use as a legitimate PC VR headset. And I think that's a future that it's not perfect, like you said, but it's a future that VR enthusiasts have been waiting for for a while, having this kind of platform agnostic hardware. Absolutely. And there's still compromises. It's still a Quest. Yes. But it ain't bad. Without a doubt, as a valve index owner, you can say that it's not as high-end as that. It's not as refined. But I didn't expect it to be. Yes. It's a fraction of the cost. Wow. Amazing. Did you know that Americans spend 42% of their waking hours staring at a digital device? That adds up to about 7,956 days in a lifetime, nearly 22 years. And all this screen time can cause eye dryness and tiredness. Luckily, Couprovision Biofinity Energist Contact Lenses are designed specifically for digital lifestyles, helping combat the symptoms associated with digital eye fatigue and keeping your eyes comfortable throughout the day. So start your free trial with Couprovision Biofinity Energist Contact Lenses today by going to couprovision.com forward slash linus-tech. We're gonna have that linked below. So thanks for watching, guys. If you enjoyed this video, but you wanna see something a little higher and maybe check out our recent video reviewing the Valve Index. It's at the other end of the spectrum, but I don't know. Maybe you're just interested in VR or whatever. You know what we should have done? I should have like played you in something. I don't know.