Owners of the Oculus Quest virtual reality headset – the stand-alone hardware we described as “the best value for VR on the market” – will receive hand tracking support this week, Oculus said Monday. Hand tracking allows quest owners to control apps only with their hands, without the need for controllers, and limits the initial rollout.
Oculus calls hand tracking support for Quest “an early consumer feature” that will be introduced to developers next week.
“In this first release, you can use your hands to navigate and interact with Quest’s Home interfaces such as Library and Store, as well as selected first-party apps such as Oculus Browser and Oculus TV,” the company said. “You can even set your ground level for a stationary Guardian boundary with your hands – without the need for control. . and that is just the beginning. We will continue to add new features and functionality to enhance hand tracking at Quest in 2020. “
Next week, developers will be able to create “controller-free hand interactions in Quest apps” for the first time, says Oculus. The company is challenging expectations for proposed support – “from more expressive gestures in social apps to more efficient workflows in business education modules and more,” says Oculus – expecting the first batch of third-party apps to arrive in 2020.
Oculus announced hand-tracking control and support for Rift games on Quest (via the Oculus Link cable) at its annual Connect conference in September.
