Quest 3 can run flat screen VRChat while in VR VRChat

Running VRChat within VRChat is possible on the standalone Quest headset.

The Android beta of VRChat can run as a 2D installable app via sideloading. This has technically been possible for some time, but as Meta improves multitasking capabilities for Horizon OS, it’s becoming easier to check in on VRChat or another flat-screen Android app while waiting for something to happen in a world completely different submersibles.

I ran a concept experiment of VRChat through a total of four example applications on my Quest 3:

• Streaming VRChat Virtual Desktop with fully immersive PC running on an NVIDIA RTX 2080.
• VRChat fully immersive native looking.
• A PC VRChat flat panel app that runs on a Steam Deck and streams via the 2D Android Steam Link app loaded on the headset.
• Mobile VRChat .apk that runs as a 2D flat panel Android app directly on Quest 3.

Here’s a short video that demonstrates the Quest 3 running standalone VRChat in fully immersive mode with the VRChat mobile app running concurrently.

The fact that VRChat worked in all these scenarios is a testament to the platform’s ubiquity, as well as Valve and Meta’s qualified openness. At the same time, the circuitous paths these packages take to their functionality point to the opportunities Apple, Google, and Valve have waiting to mitigate what Meta’s approach here has made harder than it needs to be.

Flat2VR & VR2Flat

VRChat just laid off 30% of its workforce with its founders saying “we need an expanded runway” to achieve “rocket levels of success” in the next two to five years.

In virtual reality, windows and applications can be portals to places. For my experiment running a VRChat instance while inside VRChat, this meant inhabiting an avatar while simultaneously using a window as a remote control for an android walking in the same space. While funny – an Android app became an actual android in VR – it’s also evidence that VRChat is a sprawling landscape with boundaries too large to be enveloped by platforms like the existing ones built by Meta, Valve, Apple and Google.

With Horizon Worlds, Rec Room and Roblox also available on both flat screen and VR, it’s easy to imagine a future where you can switch between these modes at will inside the headset, condensing the world you’re inside into one floating window, so you can more easily do other things, then come back to it when you’re ready.

With such a drastic change in PCs, you can also see why Meta’s CTO, Andrew Bosworth, would have a different perspective on the future of Android than Google’s XR team.