After teasing the feature back in September, Oculus has announced its hand tracking feature is arriving on the Oculus Quest this week.
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Currently, users interact on the platform through the Oculus Touch, though the Facebook company will now allow gesturing and communication to take place without a controller – a first for the industry.
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Oculus says that it will release the feature starting from this week (9 December), while it will also be available as an SDK for developers to begin tooling around with next week (16 December).
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To access it, all you need to do is update the Oculus Quest to its v12 software once rolled out, then turn on ‘Hand Tracking’ in the ‘Experimental features’ menu.
Naturally, the feature won’t be fully formed during this initial period, though you will be able to use your hands to journey around the Quest’s home screens, library and the Oculus Store.
Apps like the Oculus Browser and Oculus TV will also support hand tracking, and Oculus indicates that more features and functionality will come in 2020.
What’s still unclear – and increasingly intriguing, given lack of talk surrounding it – is whether hand tracking will arrive for the PC-powered Oculus Rift S in 2020.
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While the fact Oculus Quest is receiving this industry-first feature is exciting, and we’re fascinated to see how developers will harness the technology over the coming year, we’d wager there’s plenty of Rift S owners frustrated at the lack of updates Oculus’ high-end headset has received.
For now, it appears we’ll have to wait on any further compatibility for the hand tracking. So, if you don’t mind, we’re off to check whether the Oculus Quest v12 software update has land.