Blog · React Native

React Native has always focused on helping developers reuse knowledge across platforms. What started with Android and iOS has steadily expanded to Apple TV, Windows, macOS, and even the web with react-strict-dom. In 2021, the Many Platform Vision post outlined a future where React Native could adapt to new devices and form factors without fragmenting the ecosystem.

At React Conf 2025, we took another step toward that vision by announcing official React Native support for Meta Quest devices. This post focuses on how to get started with React Native on Meta Quest, what works today, and how developers can build and ship VR apps using familiar tools and patterns.

Today we're excited to release React Native 0.82: the first React Native that runs entirely on the New Architecture.

This is a milestone release for React Native and we believe it's the start of a new era. In future versions we will be removing the remaining code from the Legacy Architecture to reduce install size and streamline the codebase.

In addition, 0.82 also ships with an experimental opt-in to a newer version of Hermes called Hermes V1. We’re also enabling several React features by updating the React version to 19.1.1, and shipping support for DOM Node APIs.

Highlights​

• New Architecture Only
• Experimental Hermes V1
• React 19.1.1
• DOM Node APIs

In React Native 0.80, we're introducing two significant changes to React Native's JavaScript API — the deprecation of deep imports, and our new Strict TypeScript API. These are part of an ongoing effort to accurately define our API and offer dependable type safety to users and frameworks.

Quick takeaways:

• Deep imports deprecation: From 0.80, we're introducing deprecation warnings for deep imports from the react-native package.
• Opt-in Strict TypeScript API: We are moving to from-source TypeScript types and a new public API baseline under TypeScript. These enable stronger and more futureproof type accuracy, and will be a one-time breaking change. Opt in via compilerOptions in your project's tsconfig.json.
• We'll work with the community over time to ensure that these changes work for everyone, before enabling the Strict TypeScript API by default in a future React Native release.

Every year, the core contributors in the React Native Community get together with the React Native team to collaboratively shape the direction of this project.

Last year was no different—with small exception. We usually meet a day before React Universe Conf (formerly React Native EU) at Callstack HQ in Wrocław. In 2024, learning from past experiences, we hosted the Summit for two consecutive days, so that we can have more unstructured time together.