Revolutionizing WebXR Development with the Immersive Web Emulator

WebXR is expanding the many ways in which we interact with the web, allowing developers to create engaging experiences that can be accessed on a wide range of devices—from a fully immersive experience on Meta Quest VR headsets to a traditional browser experience on smartphones and tablets.

However, one of the biggest pain points faced by developers working with WebXR is the lack of a robust and convenient way to test and debug their experiences. Developers often have to don and doff their VR headsets many times during WebXR development, making it difficult and time-consuming to iterate and refine their projects.

Our Immersive Web Emulator changes all of that. Available today on the Chrome Web Store and through Edge Add-ons, Immersive Web Emulator is a desktop browser extension capable of simulating all Meta Quest headsets, enabling you to easily test and iterate your WebXR experiences without a physical XR device. Below we dive deeper into how Immersive Web Emulator can improve your workflow and how to get started.

The Immersive Web Emulator extension comes with a 3D inspector that lets you control the transform and orientation of both the emulated VR headset and controllers. Its user-friendly interface should help the extension feel intuitive and have an immediate impact on your workflow, allowing you to simulate controller input including both binary input (button presses) and analog input (trigger, grip, joystick). Additionally, the extension boasts a range of advanced features that further enhance its usability and efficiency, like keyboard action mapping, keyboard input relay, and more to come. Here are some highlights:

The Immersive Web Emulator extension easily transforms your browser into the perfect iteration tool for ensuring your WebXR experience will reach its full immersive potential in VR. With controller inputs, you can simulate the motion, actions, and orientation of VR controllers, all on your web browser.

With the interactive 3D view port, you can get a comprehensive preview of your immersive WebXR experience without ever putting on a VR headset. The extension lets you control the transform of the emulated headset and controllers for a more streamlined testing and debugging process.

The extension covers the full range of input supported by Meta Quest controllers. Coupled with the transform control feature, you can simulate complex action sequences, making it easy to preview and debug multi-step interaction mechanics in your WebXR experience.

The extension provides a set of keyboard shortcuts for triggering common actions, like moving the joysticks or pressing buttons. Keyboard shortcuts are convenient time savers when you need to run through your WebXR experience quickly while testing multiple mechanics simultaneously. The following example was recorded using keyboard shortcuts to test movement and action mechanisms.

Immersive Web Emulator is built on top of the WebExtensions API and implements the newly introduced Chrome Extension Manifest V3, which means that it will operate with enhanced security and performance on most Chromium-based desktop browsers.

Tools like Immersive Web Emulator can help you achieve more while saving precious time and energy. No matter what kind of WebXR experience you’re building, we want to help improve your process and will be updating the extension with new features based on your needs. We’re also actively working on bringing support for “immersive-ar” sessions to the Immersive Web Emulator to help you develop mixed reality WebXR experiences more efficiently.

You can download the Immersive Web Emulator extension on the Chrome Web Store and through Edge Add-ons, and detailed instructions are available on GitHub. If something doesn’t work as expected, please let us know here. We’re still in the very-early stage of development for the Immersive Web Emulator, and your support and feedback will help shape the future of this extension.