SteamVR update 2.8 enables PC VR hand tracking for Meta Quest
SteamVR now officially supports hand tracking passthrough in PC VR games when using a Meta Quest via Steam Link.
The SteamVR 2.8 update left the beta over the weekend. The biggest new feature is limited hand tracking support, which uses the Meta Quest hand tracking technology and unlocks it for PC VR games.
Valve clarifies that this is not full hand tracking support. For example, you will not be able to control the SteamVR interface with your hands and fingers. Valve is still working on that. Valve describes the current functionality of hand tracking as follows:
"This update does not introduce full hand tracking support for SteamVR's UI. It does allow for hand tracking in limited ways using input bindings, so users can experiment with it in games by creating a binding for that game and mapping various inputs from Meta's hand tracking to game inputs using the Binding UI in Controller Settings."
You'll still need the current Steam Link beta
PC VR hand tracking will start if you tap your controller together. If you would rather not use it, you can always turn it off in your Meta Quest settings.
I haven't tried the update yet, but I assume that the SteamVR version of the hand tracking hit Maestro, among others, will benefit from it. Unfortunately, you still need to have the current beta version of Steam Link installed on the Meta Quest side to benefit from hand tracking support.
Update 2.8 also brings several other improvements for SteamVR. You can read the full release notes here.
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