How To

Tiny hoops jumped to SideQuest an app, Sep 2022

I wanted to see if I could install Plex VR (an Android app,) on my Meta Quest 2, which requires using SideQuest.

Yes, I know Plex VR is not supported these days (abandoned Feb 2019,) and there are plenty of other ways and apps to do it including a web browser, etc. But I never had a VR rig when it came out and thought that might be a fun thing to see while waiting for my car to be fixed.

Sitting around in VR is what I’m doing today, waiting to blow $1100 on brakes, rotors, AC charge, alignment, fixing a gas cap release cable, figuring out a TPMS fault, and a host of other general maint repairs that became noticeable over the last three weeks of driving. Donation link top right. Kidding. Mostly.

TL;DR – ran into a couple of minor issues that I plowed through, thought I’d document them. Lots of words doesn’t mean I’m complaining.

I wasn’t a SideQuest user before today, but I do have an APK of the last release of Plex VR sitting on my phone, where it hasn’t worked for as long as I can remember. I didn’t install this yet, although I’m suspecting it will not work based on how it’s behaving on my phone. I did install other things.

OK, so your quick and dirty Android+Windows+Quest 2 setup is get the Meta Quest app, get it paired to your phone.

Mentally replace all occurrences of “Oculus” with “Meta” on any video, instruction guide, etc. This includes all the video documentation on the SideQuest VR site.

Sign up for a developer account and org from within the Android app. This takes 5ish taps and coming up with a name of your Developer Org – it can be anything such as (snake weasels). Agree to a couple of binding NDAs that you’re not going to read.

In theory this could be done in a couple of minutes. What I kept running into was that I was working in the app, in the SideQuest program on Windows, and I had a prompt maybe sitting on the Meta Quest I was not seeing. If someone had been here in the headset, probably fewer delays.

Having signed up for a developer account I was instructed to go to the settings in the Meta Quest 2 and enable developer mode. It wasn’t there. It was in the settings on the Meta Quest app on the Android device when I drilled down to devices, settings. I suspect someone just forgot to mention it was on the app, or I’m a bad reader.

That setting could not be changed. I checked once again on the headset as to whether there was a prompt. Nope. Just couldn’t change the setting.

Force closed the Meta Quest app, came back in, suddenly I can enable developer mode. I did. I heard some noise. SideQuest didn’t work still. Put the headset on again and agreed to let it talk to my computer as it had a prompt about an RSA fingerprint if I remember correctly. SideQuest had a couple of things to install (an ADB driver I believe,) and then I went ahead and installed the Plex App I grabbed from APKMirror (not the VR) and went to see how it worked.

It didn’t show in the app launcher. Didn’t show anywhere. I was, however, able to launch it from the Windows machine connected to the Meta Quest and … not so great, ended up uninstalling it as it seemed to be in phone mode and didn’t want to resize… oh well.

Overall – keep checking the VR goggles to see if you’re needing to authorize anything. Pretty easy process. Signing up for a dev account just really involves coming up with a name. It’ll be bonded with your current account and other than that you’re legally not allowed to talk smack about Zuckerberg ever again, you’re in. I suspect had I had either the Meta Quest 2 mirroring to a monitor, or someone in the rig to tell me a prompt came up, the whole thing could have been done in two minutes. Even with the app having to be force terminated for the slider button to work.

Pocketables does not accept targeted advertising, phony guest posts, paid reviews, etc. Help us keep this way with support on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!

Paul E King

Paul King started with GoodAndEVO in 2011, which merged with Pocketables, and as of 2018 he's evidently the owner. He lives in Nashville, works at a film production company, is married with two kids. Facebook | Twitter | Donate | More posts by Paul | Subscribe to Paul's posts

Avatar of Paul E King