Meta introduces Accounts and Horizon profiles for use with its VR products

Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, has introduced Meta accounts and Horizon profiles as part of the company’s virtual reality hardware and software experiences. Announced on August 23, the new accounts systems can be used by you to register yourself on an Oculus headset — without needing to link your Facebook or Instagram account to the service.

“Our new Meta account structure gives you more flexibility and control, letting you choose how you do and don’t show up—and whether Facebook and/or Instagram is part of your experience in VR and other surfaces where you use your Meta Horizon profile,” the company’s statement said.

In other words, so far, Meta mandated that for you to use an Oculus headset or the Horizon Worlds metaverse service, you would have had to compulsorily link your Facebook or Instagram account to either service. In essence, this would have meant yet another service whose data would have been linked to your Facebook account.

The new announcement backtracks on this decision, and allows you to use Oculus’ virtual reality (VR) headsets — even if you do not use any of Meta social media platforms.

Meta, of course, still incentivises users to use their own services for logging in. For instance, using Facebook or Instagram on Horizon Worlds can make for a more seamless experience — over using a separate email service to login to either the VR headset or Meta’s metaverse platform.

Meta said that its accounts service is still work in progress, so there will be a phased rollout of it. In other words, you will have to wait until Meta decides to offer you the ability to use an alternate email to login to Oculus or Horizon Worlds. Wider availability should become apparent by next year.

If you’re an existing user who has already used Facebook to login to Oculus or Horizon Worlds, you’ll still need a Meta account — but you can either delink your Facebook account and set it up as a new device, or authenticate your Meta account by linking it with your Facebook account.

The next year could see VR experiences become more mainstream. Earlier this month, Sony announced that its next-gen VR console, PlayStation VR 2, will be available from early-2023 as well. Market estimates say VR services are likely to grow at over 30% annually, and experiences such as Horizon Worlds and PS VR 2 will be early proponents to this growth.