Test your Android app with Spatial Simulator

Updated: Dec 10, 2025

Spatial Simulator is a feature included with the Meta Horizon Android Studio plugin that lets you develop and test Android panel apps for Quest devices without a physical headset. Certain immersive Horizon OS features, such as multiple panels and Spatial SDK, aren’t compatible and still require a physical device. This topic will explain how to install and use the simulator.

Figure 1. Spatial Simulator running a 2D Android app as a panel.

Benefits of Spatial Simulator

If you’re building a 2D Android app for Quest, Spatial Simulator can be a useful part of your development workflow:

No headset required: Start developing for Quest immediately even if you don’t own a headset.

Faster iteration: Skip the don/doff cycle and test changes in seconds.

True-to-device rendering: See your app at the exact panel dimensions and scale displayed on Quest.

Full Android Studio integration: Use Android Logcat, breakpoints, Layout Inspector and profilers seamlessly.

Lower barrier to entry: Android developers can start building for Quest with their existing skills.

Platform SDK testing: Test Platform SDK APIs including user management, in-app purchases, group presence, and application lifecycle in a sandboxed environment.

Billing Compatibility SDK testing: Test your Google Play Billing integration in the simulator (requires SDK version 2.0.0 or later).

Hardware and software requirements

To run Spatial Simulator, you need the following hardware and software.

For MacOS, an M1 or higher.

For Windows, 8+ cores with a NVIDIA GPU.

Disk space

Minimum: 16 GB of free disk space.

Recommended: 32 GB of free disk space.

Android Studio: Meerkat 2024.3.1 or later.

Before you begin

Create a Meta Horizon account⁠. An account is required to use Spatial Simulator.

Follow the Meta Horizon Android Studio Plugin topic to install the Android Studio plugin, which contains Spatial Simulator.

Confirm that ANDROID_HOME points to your Android SDK installation.

Ensure adb is accessible in your system PATH.

Ensure you meet the hardware and software requirements shown above.

Install and launch Spatial Simulator

In Android Studio, click the Meta logo to open the plugin.

In the plugin, click Log in.

Your browser opens and prompts you to log in.

In your browser, log into your Meta Horizon account.

Back in Android Studio, in the Virtual Devices section of the plugin, click the download icon to start downloading Spatial Simulator.

When a prompt appears, click the blue Download button.

Once the download finishes, click the green play button in the plugin window to start Spatial Simulator.

Spatial Simulator starts up.

Launch your app in the simulator by clicking the green play button in the Android Studio toolbar.

After you close the introductory tooltips, you can see your app in the simulator as a panel. To interact with the panel, you can click on UI elements, use your keyboard for text fields and shortcuts, and scroll using your mouse wheel or trackpad.

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