How to unlink your Quest headset from Facebook

Good news: Quest VR headsets no longer require Facebook accounts! If you’re buying a new Meta Quest (formerly Oculus Quest) VR headset, you don’t need a Facebook account to set it up. If you’re already using a Facebook account with your headphones, you can unlink the two. That is how.

What do I need to know?

If you already own Quest hardware, chances are good that you’re aware of what’s going on with the platform. If you haven’t used your account in a while or are new to this, here’s a brief summary.

In 2014, Facebook bought Oculus, a virtual reality company. In 2018, Oculus became a proper division of Facebook. In 2020, despite earlier promises to the contrary, Facebook announced that a Facebook login would be required to use the Oculus hardware and web portal.

By the end of the year, they had removed the ability to create a new Oculus account, requiring new users to set up their VR hardware with a Facebook account; many people created throwaway accounts for Quest hardware, though they did. it was risky and could lead to account bans and purchase losses.

In late 2021, Facebook rebranded itself as Meta to ostensibly become a “metaverse company,” and sure enough, all of the company’s VR hardware was rebranded to match.

So many headset owners began their journey with an oculus.com account, linked to their Oculus Quest or Oculus Quest 2 headset, and were forced to migrate. Some bought after the change and had to use a Facebook account from the start.

Now full circle, and yet you found yourself in the Meta/Facebook owned VR ecosystem, you can, as of August 2022, unlink your Facebook account from everything and use a separate (and free) Meta account. social networks). all by itself. That is how.

How to unlink your search from Facebook

There are a few hurdles you need to jump through to go from logging into your Quest hardware with Facebook to logging in with a Meta account. Fortunately, the experience is quite straightforward.

Before proceeding, you will have a much faster performance if you have your Facebook login handy and your Quest hardware loaded and updated with the latest firmware.

Unlink Facebook and create a meta account

First things first, you need to visit this meta.com web-based setup page. Sign in with your Facebook account. (You can also use this workflow to migrate from an Oculus account directly to a Meta account, though that’s not our primary focus.)

You will be directed to Facebook and asked to accept Meta by signing in to your Facebook account. Click “Continue as [Your Name]”

You will then be prompted to set up a new Meta account by migrating it off of your Facebook account. The email address associated with your account will be displayed here. Click “Next” to confirm.

If you haven’t used (or updated) your Oculus devices in a while, you may be prompted at this point to update your headset. If your headset is up to date or you just updated it, click continue.

You will be prompted to continue setting up your Meta account, either with or without Facebook. Naturally, they would prefer that you set up your Meta account linked to Facebook, but the point of this exercise is to remove the link between your Meta account and your Facebook account, so click “Continue without Facebook.”

You will be prompted to create a new password for your Meta account, as you will no longer be using your Facebook account to authorize access to your Meta account or purchases. A 6-digit security code will be sent to the email address shown above.

After entering your new password, you will be prompted to review your account information, including your name, email address, and date of birth. Do so and click “Finish account setup.”

Once you’ve confirmed your account setup, you’ll be prompted to set up your Horizon profile. You will keep your old username; this name is strictly for the Horizon profile.

Next, you will be prompted to configure your privacy settings for Horizon. You can select between “Open to all”, “Friends and family” and “Only”. Click “Review” to review your privacy settings, and then click “Accept and continue” if they are set to your liking.

You can review and change this setting at any time in the future, so there is little harm in going “Solo”. Click “Finish” and you’re done.

Link your headset to your meta account

Once you have completed the migration with the web browser of your choice, there is one final step. You have to grab your Quest headphones and put them on. Instead of the usual virtual lobby you see, you will see a message like the one below.

Visit the page on the indicator and enter the code you see to link the hardware to your Meta account.

Your Quest headset will reboot, and in a few moments, you’ll be back in the virtual headset lobby with everything updated and a shiny new Meta profile in place of the old one.

And that’s it: no more integration with Facebook. There’s nothing left to do but enjoy your headset and maybe put some updates on it.