Does the Oculus Quest 2 support Wi-Fi 6?

Get a Oculus Quest 2 for wireless VR

The Oculus Quest was the original fully wireless VR system, and that wireless nature came with all sorts of advantages. Based on leaked promotional videos from Facebook, the Oculus Quest 2 will be powered by the brand new Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 platform. This doesn't just represent a massive performance upgrade from the original Oculus Quest's Snapdragon 835, but it also provides a wealth of new sensors and chipsets that build upon the new processor.

Paramount to the question at hand is the Snapdragon XR2's support of Wi-Fi 6 natively, as well as support for the 60GHz 802.11ay wireless standard. Since the chipset that powers the Oculus Quest 2 supports both of these standards, it's safe to say that the Oculus Quest 2 will also support them.

It's not just about faster downloads

If you're not familiar with these two new standards, here's a brief crashcourse. Wi-Fi 6, also known less commonly as 802.11ax, brings about faster Wi-Fi speeds, lower latency, and better battery life for wireless devices. The advantage of that last part is pretty obvious, given that the Oculus Quest family is all about wireless VR, but what advantages can the other points bring besides faster downloads? A better wireless link to your PC.

Playing games like Half-Life: Alyx on the Oculus Quest is possible right now, but current Wi-Fi 5 wireless speeds mean that there's a chance your game could become laggy or get interrupted based on slow wireless network traffic. Wi-Fi 6 is up to 40% faster than Wi-Fi 5, which means streaming VR games wirelessly from your PC to your Oculus Quest 2 should be a whole lot smoother and have higher quality video. Given that the Oculus Quest 2 is said to have a 50% higher resolution screen than the original Oculus Quest, you're probably going to need all the bandwith you can get to stream those high-fidelity VR games from a PC.

The second wireless standard supported by the Snapdragon XR2 is 60GHz 802.11ay. As you might gather from the letter increase (ax vs ay), 802.11ay can bring even higher wireless speeds in hyper-local environments. The wireless adapters for the HTC Vive on PC supported a similar 60GHz wireless standard, and the result was perfect wireless VR without any noticeable latency or video quality degradation.

While we haven't seen anything else to suggest that Facebook could be releasing an Oculus wireless adapter for wirelessly connecting the Oculus Quest 2 to a PC, support for the standard on the chipset that powers the Oculus Quest 2 certainly brings hope of a possibility. Just note that in order to gain access to Wi-Fi 6 at home, you'll need a great Wi-Fi 6-compatible router.

Oculus Quest 2: Everything You Need to Know!