Meta’s latest Horizon OS Update for Quest (V76) has introduced a new battery saver setting as default. This has caused users to experience frame rate issues with apps and games. Now, meta CTO Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth says he’s “seriously looking” as the company rolls out the fixes and how OS updates will be communicated in the future.
On a recent Instagram AMA, Bosworth addressed a recent user complaint about the quietly included system defaults that automatically toggles the more aggressive version of the Quest 3’s battery saver mode.
Previously, the Battery Saver Limited quest refresh rate was 72Hz, and fixed gaze rendering was applied, reducing brightness to 50%.
However, the latest V76 release of Horizon OS includes a newer version of the Battery Saver as default, bringing the headset refresh rate to 90Hz, but making many games nasty at 45fps.
If the user is unable to turn off the battery saver, they will not know why the headset decided to act suddenly.
PSA: To disable battery saver in Quest 3, go to “Power” settings in the “Device” menu in the Settings app. Next, toggle the “Power Save Mode” option.
In particular, many quest apps do not use Application Space Warp (APPSW). This implements an older title that was implemented to generate composite frames between actual frames and smooth out the low frame rate starter by effectively double the perceived frame rate.
Bosworth says Meta is “developing the fix for that.” He further states that the usual wonders of Horizon OS “help identify regressions faster,” but when it comes to patch notes, it can “better with the documentation.” As today, iterative Horizon OS patch notes are rather flirty and often contain only a few line items with many unexplained.
Below is the complete transcription of Bosworth’s comment:
Yeah, good discussion and feedback from developers last week confirms that they are of higher quality than before, with the stability and changes we are making in the rollout.
I think that’s great feedback. I’m taking it seriously due to battery saver issues. That’s why we’re deploying the fix.
And more generally, I don’t think that’s why we’re unfolding things too quickly. I think it’s just that before things go out, we have to put up a stronger set of processes for quality control.
I’m taking this seriously. We spend our time on it. So, we appreciate the feedback from the developers. We take it seriously. That’s our responsibility. These are our mistakes. And we will fix them.
And we understand that this is not casual. This is the livelihood and time of people spent on important lines in the experience of consumers having software for people.
Yes, I take that seriously. We are at work. I think the amazing thing is helpful because the amazing thing actually helps identify regressions earlier. But we agree we can do better with the documentation as well.
