Oculus Link 2022: What is it and How to Set it Up

Sophie Webster, Tech Times 18 March 2022, 10:03 pm

If you want to switch your Quest or Quest 2 headset into a PC VR headset, you can use an Oculus Link. The link offers high-performance PC hardware to render graphics instead of the standalone mobile hardware but without any wires.

How Does Oculus Link Work?

Oculus Link is a feature of the Quest and Quest 2 VR headsets that allow you to switch them to PC VR headsets. With this link, you can play any PC VR games that are compatible with Oculus Rift, according to How to Geek.

From the game's perspective, you are using a Rift device, with the Quest software client on your computer handling all the translation work between the computer and the headset.

For you to be able to use the Oculus Link, you need a VR-ready PC, a high-quality USB-C cable of at least 10 feet, your Quest software client that is installed on your PC, and a Quest headset that is updated to the latest system software.

Also Read: Oculus Quest 2 vs Valve Index: What Should You Buy Between the Two?

As for the USB-C cable, you can also use a USB-2 cable, but you will see lower image quality and occasional stutter. It is best to use a USB 3 or a USB 3.1 cable for the best experience.

The USB 3.0 and USB 3.1 offer more than enough bandwidth to carry all of the data that you need between the PC and Quest.

The good news is that the mobile hardware in the Quest headsets can decompress that video stream almost immediately and so you won't notice latency difference between the Quest and Rift S headsets.

Oculus has redesigned the render pipeline for the Quest so that they still hit the needed targets to maintain VR presence.

While Oculus Link is known as a mainstream feature of Quest, a new experimental feature called Air Link has been added. Oculus Air Link is the wireless version of Link, according to Oculus Air Link.

What is an Oculus Air Link?

An Oculus Air Link does the same thing as Oculus Link, but instead of communicating with your headset using a USB-cable, it all happens via Wi-Fi.

While Oculus Link is currently an official feature of the Quest 2 and Quest 2, at the time of writing Oculus Air Link is still an experimental feature.

This means that it may get better or worse whenever an update happens and that it may be taken away in the future. For now, you have the option of using it as an alternative.

If you wish to use Oculus Air Link, you need to have a VR-ready PC, an ethernet connection from the PC to the router, and a 5Ghz 802.11ac router or a dedicated one.

"Dedicated" means that the router is used only by the Quest and it is also used for the household's LAN and WAN traffic.

This can help remove any latency issues that come from the router trying to give network traffic an equal share of bandwidth and processing resources.

How to Use the Oculus Link and Air Link

To use the Link or Air Link, you need the equipment that are listed above that are compatible with the Link and Air Link. You need to carefully set it up and activate the feature.

This will let you play PC VR games using your Quest or Quest 2, and the steps with both headsets are the same.

Earlier this year, Oculus Quest 2 allowed users to sync the VR headset to their Apple Health account.