Facebook Account for Oculus Devs ?

Hello,

My company wants to acquire Oculus Quests 2 in order to develop and use VR formations.
However an issue recently arose : the Facebook account obligation in order to access the Oculus environment.

So my question is : is having a Facebook account mandatory to develop for the Quest 2 with Unity or is it just mandatory to play Oculus Games ?

Thank You.

 

It's mandatory to even setup the device.

 

We develop VR apps for mental health professionals. FB's new policy, which includes monitoring apps in use (including audio), is a HIPAA violation. Yes, supposedly the monitoring is "just" on FB's social VR apps, but I'm calling BS on that. It's FB, so we are assuming that they are not telling the full truth about privacy or will change policy at the drop of a hat. So, we've suspended all development for anything Oculus related. Hopefully, a competitor to Oculus will come up with an affordable alternative to the Quest 2. Pity too, price combined with the tethering option, made it really attractive.

 

Hey there, after speaking to the team here's what they sent me:

Please refer to latest guidance from Oculus here (https://support.oculus.com/424208161507635/?locale=en_US).

 

yeah super annoying, literally cannot recommend Quest for business customers (and they were shocked to hear this requirement), since they and cannot have their (secret) prototypes to be recorded/visible for outsiders.. (even though its using Link+Quest).

Also asked this from Oculus support, they wouldn't give Yes or No answers whether the players view and outside camera view and microphone gets recorded.

 

I hope UE will stop FB from this politics in Europe

 

Same here and the recent news made things even worse.

I'm currently quoting 3 different VR projects that were going to go on the Quest 2 for serious gaming purposes. The hmd will be used in public areas, so privacy isn't the main concern in these instances but the mandatory Facebook login is.

I'm curious to know how fellow developers are managing it when the headset is owned by a company and not a human since Facebook forces you to use your real name. I obviously can't force people who work for / with me to register and give their ID to Facebook and even if they did, we'd still risk the account being permabaned.

How do you guys manage accounts inside your companies?

Since public spaces usage seem impossible, can anybody recommend alternatives for autonomous VR? Most people say no but they're talking about private use in the same price bracket. As a pro, a pricier option would be worth it is if it's a no string attached product.

Thanks

 

How did you guys managed it businesswise? Did you have to tell your clients / users you had to go back on your word?

That's super shady.

Do you know if Occulus / Facebook addressed the serious game market? I can't find anything about it.

 

You could also look at Oculus 4 Business
https://business.oculus.com/?locale=en_US

AFAIK, no plans to require facebook for that

 

Still a no-go for us. Oculus for Business website reads, in part, "...uses strict data handling and security protocols to store headset data and help ensure that you own the data associated with your devices." No Facebook, you can't have patient-related data, which may or may not include audio from a treatment session. Nope.

 

Yeah, we kinda dodged a bullet on that one. Fortunately, we don't have to deal with customers that currently use Oculus. We started with Vive for various reasons, such as more precise tracking (inches matter for our apps) and better consistency than Rift/S using USB and DP extender cables. What we do have to do is eat the development time we've put into developing for the Rift S. Rift S version was nearly complete and we had high hopes for the Quest 2 (tethered to a PC), but that "roadmap" now shows a dead end. Even if FaceBook walks back portions of their policy that affect patient privacy, we're done with Oculus. I feel sorry for the both the developers and companies that bought apps that, by law, require a high degree of identity security and privacy.

 

We want to use the Oculus Quest headset for the automotive industry (development, not ad), but if Facebook gets involved, we're done. Facebook is not secure.