Quest Day: Meta's 'holiday' offers a host of weird and wonderful experiments

When the company formerly known as Facebook made the shift to Meta, there were a lot of questions about what that would look like in practice. Today, as Meta celebrates its self-described made-up holiday "Quest Day," we're starting to get some answers. VR brand Oculus has now been absorbed into parent company Meta, and this celebration is the first direct effort to repeatedly refer to its flagship VR headset as the Meta Quest 2.

And if all of that weren't confusing enough, the details surrounding Meta's Quest Day can be found in video form on its Instagram page, which like the other social network accounts attached to this headset are still clearly labeled with the former name Oculus. (Even though Facebook, I mean Meta, also owns Instagram.)

According to Meta, Quest Day is a celebration of not-quite-done VR experiments followed by some community giveaways. These are ideas that aren't ready to share with the general population, but would be fun for a tinkerer to enjoy. The video advertising this event shows off someone baking real-life cookies in an oven via their VR headset as well as a giant mascot in the form of a Quest 2 with legs and a face. It's called Questy. 

These experiments were unveiled via a multihour livestream, which has since ended. Below we document all of the experiments here for you to catch up on if you weren't watching live. You can see them all at the Quest Day page too.

First up is a Quest experiment for all the pet lovers out there. Meta made a snack launcher for pets, which you can control from within your headset. The idea here actually isn't too bad: Pets frequently get a little upset when they see their owners doing things in VR. Being able to offer that little distraction while you play would actually be pretty cool. 

This experiment is not available, but a Quest-themed silicone mat was available to everyone watching the event. Stock went extremely quickly, and is now sold out. 

Next up, Meta made a little oven for baking cookies. You can't own this oven, but if you could you'd see it has the ability to be controlled from within the Quest 2 and you can watch what's inside too. If you've ever wanted to bake real cookies while wearing your VR headset, this is how Meta imagines you would do so.

While I think everyone would love to watch real cookies bake in VR, it's not hard to see why this is just an experiment and not available to buy. Instead, Meta has made VR cookie butter shapes that include a Quest 2 headset and a Beat Saber block, among other things. 

You know what most VR athletes don't do enough of? Drinking water. Meta's smart water bottle tells you when to drink as you work out. It looks a little silly, but it's actually a really good idea. While you can't buy this, it was briefly possible to get some grippy socks with the Meta Quest logo on them. To date, that's the first swag with the Meta Quest logo on it anybody who doesn't work at Meta can get their hands on. Like everything else today, these free socks "sold out" immediately.

I don't know that I would decorate my Christmas tree with Beat Saber lights, but I would absolutely hang them up in my house so they pulse along with whatever song I'm playing. These lights really feel like they could easily be a thing Meta actually sells at some point instead of just being an experiment, but for now the only thing available to people is a Beat Saber-themed ugly holiday sweater. If you've been reading along, you know these free sweaters did not last long and are already sold out. 

There are lots of places you can go to add a little more depth to your VR experience, physical installations with real-world interactions to help make everything feel more real. It's not easy to get that feeling at home, which is what makes the last invention of the day so much fun. The "Spine Chiller" blows a gust of cold air on your back to send a chill up your spine as you play a scary game in VR.

This kind of thing would be incredible to try at home, if it were possible to do so. Instead, what you can grab is a gingerbread house decorating kit themed after the Barclay Mansion from Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife. As you can imagine by now, supplies did not last long. 

The final segment in today's weird and fun spectacle from Meta didn't include a bold experiment, rather an opportunity to get your own lil' Questy plush.

Ultimately it's clear a lot of the things we've seen today would have been ideal to show off in person at an event for developers where you could really Connect with the tech (I will not apologize), but for now it's cool to see this is the kind of off-the-wall stuff the Meta team is thinking about on top of everything else when it comes to making the real world a little more VR-friendly.