Each and every day, we use our hands. Whether it be to type up a response to a buddy or to gesture while we are interacting with those we care about, we use our hands. They are one of the keys we use to interact with the world and how we can communicate. In the virtual world, the community has been striving for years to have a controller than represents our hands inside of the virtual space. We thought we struck good with the Valve Index controllers, but they turned out to be almost perfect, slightly off of what we were looking for.
We always thought that the best way to represent our hands inside of our virtual worlds was to strap something futuristic to our hands. That turns out not to be the case. Oculus has cracked the code, and have incorporated hand tracking into the Oculus Quest. This is going to truly let your hands represent themselves inside of your next VR game and experience.
The software will be available for all consumer Quest headsets throughout the week. It is as simple as updating your Quest to the newest software update, and then go to the settings and turn on hand tracking inside of the Experimental Features in one of the navigating menus. You will be able to use your hands inside of the Oculus library, menus, and in the store. On top of that, using your hands within the first-party apps such as Oculus Venues and Oculus TV. You can set up your play guardian with no controllers and set the floor level up as well.
To switch between your hands and your controllers, simply switch the flip inside of the Oculus Home menu. This is all of the features that are available right now, but as the year turns, there will be more for the consumers to eat up. There aren’t any third-party apps ready to integrate this tech just yet, but we know that there are some pretty big studios planning to release hand tracking inside of their high-end games right when Oculus gives them the green light. It should be soon, and we expect it to be inside the first half of January 2020.
As for the developers that are going to be exposed to this tech, they will have the ability to try it with third-party apps and games as early as next week. Oculus is also going to be giving the tech packs of hand tracking to devs so they can have the full ability to make useful and mind-blowing titles for their newest standalone headset.
This update for consumers could not be coming at a more perfect time. As family and friends gather, showing off what your little headset is capable is going to get you some fun conversations around the tree this year. Expect this to be rolled out on all Quest headsets before the end of Friday this week. For more VR news and community updates, make sure to check back at VRGear.com.
