News

Meta Quest 2 now has better hand tracking for high fives and clapping

Eventually, you might not even need controllers for VR.

by
Joe Rice-Jones
April 20, 2022

Meta’s line of Quest VR headsets is getting a significant boost to its hand-tracking skills. Now it can identify and recreate more movements, like clapping hands or high-fives.

The Presence Platform is part of Quest’s software that helps to bridge real worlds with virtual worlds. It tracks your hands with the forward-facing cameras and puts them into the software world that you’re seeing on the screens.

Designed to replace the hardware controllers, it can even figure out what your hands are doing if the camera can’t see all of your hands, like when you clap them together.

With the new update, the Presence Platform can identify the thumbs-up gesture, folded hands, high-fives, and other complex gestures. Improvements to other gestures have also been made, like pinching, grabbing, or poking.

Meta doesn’t want to stop there. Eventually, it wants you to wear a wristband that will sense if you’re thinking about moving your arms, hands, or fingers.

That wristband will also provide tactile feedback, so your brain will think you’re touching virtual objects.

An inflatable glove is also being developed by Meta, although that’s still early in the development cycle. Other companies are trying different controller designs, like this “shake weight for the metaverse.”

Another company, one backed by Sony, is working on an armband that simulates a sense of touch and weight. Until hardware-based systems are more user-friendly, camera-based ones will have to do.

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