Oculus Rebranded As Facebook Reality Labs

Oculus, one of the companies that has helped pioneer virtual reality over the last handful of years, is being consolidated underneath a new name. As part of a rebranding effort to combine multiple departments, Facebook has decided to group it with other AR/VR ventures under the name Facebook Reality Labs.

The news comes on the heels of the renaming of Oculus' annual event, Oculus Connect, which will now take place on September 16 under the its new title, Facebook Connect. This event is rumored to feature the reveal for the next Oculus Quest iteration, and it's unclear now if new products in Facebook's VR line will continue to bear the Oculus branding.

In a post on Tech@Facebook, the move was described as a means to make clearer which VR projects were owned by Facebook. The social media company purchased Oculus in 2014 and has allowed it to operate under that name since.

"Much like Facebook's recent corporate rebranding, our emphasis is on clarity — visually identifying us as a part of Facebook while looking toward the future of the next computing platform that puts people at the center," the post reads.

Facebook Reality Labs as a brand has been around for some time already, as Facebook continued to push in multiple directions with various VR and AR ventures. Just last week Facebook announced that it would require new Oculus owners to sign into their devices with Facebook accounts, while existing Oculus account holders will have to migrate by 2023.

The Oculus Quest remains one of the best VR headsets you can buy today, with great support for Half-Life: Alyx if you can tether it to a PC. It's also the last headset that Oculus released, launching over a year ago in May 2019.