Plex Abandons Virtual Reality Development: A Look Into the Future of Their Platform

Plex is one of the best ways to stream your own movies, TV, and music collections across all your devices. There are Plex apps for nearly every device imaginable, but now Plex is dropping support for VR platforms.

Plex announced in a forum post that it is ending support for its Google Daydream, Gear VR, and Oculus Go apps. The company said, “We recognize that this impacts several of you greatly, and we apologize for any inconvenience it will cause. This decision was not made lightly, and overall low usage played a major role in our decision process. Additionally, these platforms are either currently not, or soon will not be, supported by their manufacturers.”

Google Daydream was Google’s phone-based VR platform, initially released in 2016 . You could put your phone inside the Daydream View headset to watch videos, use a few apps, and play some games, using the phone’s processing power and display. Google stopped certifying new devices for Daydream in 2019, and only a handful of phones were ever supported.

Gear VR was Samsung’s early VR platform, dating back to 2014, using the same smartphone-in-headset approach. It was developed in collaboration with Oculus, which went on to create the Oculus Go, which was a standalone headset that didn’t need an attached smartphone (but was still based on Android hardware and software).

Plex

Plex had an application available for all three platforms, allowing you to watch your movies and TV shows in a virtual theater, including with friends over voice chat. It’s not surprising that support is going away for these old platforms, but Plex doesn’t support newer virtual reality devices either. There’s no Plex app for Meta Quest headsets, PC VR, or PlayStation VR. You can use the Plex web app in the web browser on Quest headsets, or mirror a PC’s screen to your headset, but that’s not the best experience.

The old apps will continue working for the moment, but they will not be available for download, and “future system updates” could break access to Plex libraries from the VR apps. Here’s hoping Plex eventually releases a new app for modern VR headsets.

Source: Plex

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