Meta Quest is getting a very useful hand tracking shortcut
A new Meta Quest shortcut lets you instantly switch to hand tracking. A small improvement that makes a big difference.
I usually keep hand tracking turned off most of the time, and only turn it on when I am testing apps with hand tracking.
One of the things I dislike is that I have to wait way too long for my Meta Quest 2 to switch from controller tracking to hand tracking. When I set the controllers aside, it takes at least five seconds for my touch controllers to turn off and for my hands to appear in front of me.
Meta has now come up with a clever solution to this problem: You can directly activate hand tracking by double tapping the controllers gently together. When you pick up the controllers later, the system switches back to controller tracking.
This hand tracking shortcut was brought to the attention by Reddit user u/Precious_Hungarian, who also published a video (see below) in which he demonstrates the feature.
The shortcut hasn't rolled out to all users yet
This feature is not documented in the Meta Quest release notes, nor has it been announced by Meta. On Reddit, a user with the v50 firmware update reports finding the option under Settings > Movement Tracking.
I also have this firmware version installed, but I cannot find the option. Nothing happens when I tap the touch controllers together. Looks like I'll have to wait.
With the same firmware update, Meta released a new feature called Direct Touch (under Settings > Experimental Features), which allows you to interact with the Quest interface by touching it with your finger, similar to a smartphone or tablet.
With the new shortcut, I will be using this feature and hand tracking in general more often in the future. At least if Meta allows me to turn off the automatic switch to hand tracking. This often happens unintentionally and is just as annoying as waiting for hand tracking to be activated when I need it.
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