Meta opens Quest OS to rival device makers

Meta Platforms is sharing its Quest headset’s operating system with rival device-makers, including Microsoft, for the first time, it said on Monday, as it works to extend its influence over the emerging virtual and mixed reality industry.

The move will allow partner companies to build their headsets using Meta Horizon OS, a rebranded operating system that brings capabilities like gesture recognition, passthrough, scene understanding and spatial anchors to the devices that run on it, the company said in a blog post.

The social media company said partners Asus and Lenovo would use the operating system to build devices tailored for particular activities.

Meta is also using it to make a limited edition version of the Quest headset “inspired by” Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console, according to the company’s statement.

The move underscores Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s ambition to own the computational platform that powers virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) devices, similar to the way Alphabet’s Google became a key player in the smartphone market by making its mobile OS Android open source.

Meta’s VR business is one of the beneficiaries of that Google strategy, as Meta Horizon OS is itself Android-based.

VR and MR headsets have so far seen limited adoption, mostly from the gaming community and select enterprises that use them for training or remote conferencing.