Owners of Oculus Quest 2 can now directly address Facebook while using the headset to perform certain tasks with the phrase ‘Hey Facebook’.
The new experimental opt-in feature is rolling out to Oculus Quest 2 headsets starting today, with plans to extend the feature to the original Quest over time. Facebook says, “Quest will not listen to the ‘Hey Facebook’ wake word when the microphone is off, or when the headset is sleeping or turned off.” You can also deactivate the feature after it is enabled, according to a blog post from the company.
The feature works with Facebook’s existing voice commands rolled out last year. There is a full list of them on the Oculus support website, but some of them include launching apps, recording gameplay, or casting your opinion.
From Facebook’s post on the feature:
“You also have control over whether your voice commands are saved and possibly used to improve the feature. You can easily view, hear and delete your voice commands activity at any time or even turn off voice storage in your Settings, while still using the Voice commands feature. It is our responsibility to protect your privacy and you can read more about how we do that here.
We are curious how our readers feel about this position. Apple, of course, uses “Hey Siri,” while Google lets you address the company itself as “Hey Google,” Microsoft uses “Hey Cortana,” and Amazon relies on the unusual word “Alexa” to trigger its constellation of eavesdropping devices.