“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” —Doc Brown

One year ago to the date, we launched Oculus Touch. Today, we’re excited to launch Rift’s next chapter—the beta for Rift Core 2.0.

Core 2.0 consists of three key parts: a complete overhaul of Home; a redesigned Oculus desktop app; and Dash, a brand-new system interface that brings the power of your PC into VR.

You can opt-in to the beta now, following the instructions in the Rift Core 2.0 User Guide.

The Dawn of Rift Core 2.0

Touch was a major milestone for Oculus and for VR. Hand presence unlocked an entirely new mode of input that made VR more natural, intuitive, and tactile. The next step was to rethink the core experience from the ground up. The result is Core 2.0.

Dash

Dash fundamentally changes what you can do with Rift and how you use the device. It brings major improvements—it’s easier to switch apps, connect with friends, and generally do more from inside of VR.

One of the main features of Dash is Oculus Desktop, letting you access your Windows desktop and traditional apps. This opens up new creative possibilities for Rift, using Spotify to play music, YouTube to watch videos, Chrome to surf the web and check email, or Notepad to take notes—all from within VR.

The ability to pull up Dash anywhere and leverage your PC is powerful. Even in this early incarnation, we’re getting a ton of mileage from Dash, especially for internal development. We’re really looking forward to seeing the community use Dash in ways we never expected.

Home

Home has been entirely rebuilt from the ground up to be more immersive, engaging, and personal.

By far, the most requested feature for Home has always been the power to customize the space. This rewrite not only makes that possible, it takes things one step further with a much richer universe featuring interactive objects and decorative collectibles.

In the beta, Home has a base set of customization features that we plan to evolve over time: there’s one room layout with a few hundred items built by us to collect to customize your space. Amidst the chairs and tables, there are some rare masterpieces created by the Oculus Rex team, who built First Contact and Dreamdeck, waiting to be discovered.

While everyone starts with the standard set, you can unlock new items weekly by logging into Rift and spending time in VR. During the beta, there’s a limit to the number of item packs you can earn each week. This way, everyone’s collection varies and grows naturally over time. You can also unlock items like trophies and game cartridges based on your achievements and library on the platform.

We’ll be adding tons of new content throughout the year, including new items and decorations built by the community. We’ll also make it easy to bring your own content, like Medium sculptures, into Home in 2018.

In the beta, you can share your Home with friends and visit your friends’ spaces to see what they’ve created. One of the key features we’re working on is real-time hangouts—making it easy for you to get together with friends in your Home and create together. This is one of our top priorities for the year ahead.

Long term, Home will bring more and more of the Oculus Platform to life in VR. And as part of its evolution, we’ll provide more ways for you to help shape and share it.

Your Voice

We built Core 2.0 for you, and we want to hear your thoughts. Community feedback has had a huge influence on our direction since the very beginning. You can report bugs via the Help Center → Send Feedback option in the Oculus desktop app. We’re also opening up a page on UserVoice during the beta, where you can vote on features you’d like to see in the future.

This initial beta release of Dash and Home is rough around the edges. We wanted to get it in your hands early, and we there are a number of design and system compatibility issues—particularly related to Oculus Desktop—that we’re working through. We’ve posted a full list of known issues here.

What’s Next

This is just the beginning of a new chapter for Rift. Core 2.0 lays the technical foundation for our long-term roadmap, and we have ambitious plans for the years ahead. While we’re excited about everything that’s launching today, we’re most excited for what comes next.

Thank you for being on the journey with us. And welcome to Core 2.0.

— Nate