Meta Connect 2022 is right around the corner—but you don’t need to wait a whole month for new announcements. We’ve got some today, courtesy of the v44 software update.

As always, v44 will roll out gradually to all Meta Quest headsets over the next few weeks so we can make sure everything works as intended. Once you’ve downloaded the update though, you’ll have access to Advanced Camera Settings (for all your content creation needs) and an updated version of App Unlock, plus some additional Parental Supervision tools to join those released in June and July. Read on for more details!

Advanced Camera Settings

With v44, we’re introducing a toggle for Advanced Camera Settings under the Experimental Settings menu. Once enabled, all you expert and aspiring VR cinematographers will have a batch of new tools for recording videos on the Quest Platform, so that Expert+ run of “Ghost” by Camellia will show off your skills in the best light possible.

First up, image stabilization. Recording video is hard when the camera is your head! But we’re enabling you to choose how visible the headset movement is in your videos. Note that increasing image stabilization will (by necessity) decrease the field of view, so find what works for you.

You’ll also be able to set the default format and resolution for videos, e.g. recording in landscape (16:9) instead of square (1:1). You can increase the frame rate and bit rate for your video recordings as well—though recording at a higher frame rate may impact system performance and recording at a higher bit rate will take up more storage on your device.

As you can see, there are tradeoffs for each of these features—which is why they’re under the Advanced Camera Settings toggle for now. For many people, the defaults will continue to work fine. But if you’re regularly sharing your triumphs to YouTube and want more control, now you can dial in the settings that work best for you.

New Parental Supervision Tools

We’re continuing to roll out additional Parental Supervision tools to help make the Quest Platform a more supportive and welcoming environment. Starting in v44, parents and guardians will be able to block Developer Mode on a supervised teen’s account—in the process, blocking the ability to sideload apps onto the Meta Quest headset.

If you missed the release of our previous Parental Supervision tools, check out our v41 and v42 blog posts for more information.

App Unlock v2

Back in v40, we added App Unlock, a.k.a. the ability to gate specific games and apps behind an unlock pattern. With v44, we’re making two small quality-of-life tweaks that should make it easier to use App Unlock day-to-day.

First, we’re adding the ability to lock multiple apps with a single unlock pattern entry, so you won’t need to scroll through your Library and lock each game or app individually. In addition, you’ll be able to filter and batch-lock your games and apps based on rating categories—if, for instance, you wanted to secure all Mature-rated games. You’ll find this latter capability on the App Lock page in your Security settings page.

As we said, Meta Connect is mere weeks away, so mark your calendars! We’ll be back soon with more news!