What you need to know
- Hands 2.2 is rolling out to Meta Quest headsets running firmware v56.
- Hand tracking latency has been reduced up to 75% during fast movement compared to Hands 2.1.
- Players can enable Multimodal and Capsense Hands as part of the new feature set, making controller and hand tracking switching instantaneous.
One of the best things about AI is its innate ability to learn. Like the human brain, AI can get smarter and better at a task the more often it repeats it. Practice makes perfect, and Meta certainly looks to be perfecting hand tracking in the latest round of hand tracking updates for the Oculus Quest 2.
In the latest blog post, Meta details how it has been training its hand-tracking AI model and is now passing those training improvements down to users once again. Hand tracking 2.2 is now up to 75% faster than the previous hand tracking 2.1 model and is "almost as fast as controllers," according to the company. Meta released the video below to showcase the difference between the two versions and how it could be used in the best Quest games.
Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets now allow users to use both hand tracking and controller tracking simultaneously, called Multimodal tracking. This makes it possible to use a controller in one hand while just using your other hand to interact with virtual elements. It also means switching between hand tracking and controller tracking is finally instantaneous.
Lastly, players and developers can also enable a new feature that shows a player's hands even while they're using controllers, called Capsense Hands. This will help VR interaction feel more natural since you'll be able to see your hands instead of just the controllers.
That should help for several tasks, including pushing buttons and grabbing objects, as you'll get the natural visual of your hands grabbing something while still retaining the haptic feedback that only a controller can provide. Hands 2.2 is rolling out automatically on headsets with firmware v56 installed.
The Quest 2 gets better every single month thanks to Meta's rigorous update schedule and the power of AI. See how virtual worlds are better when you're in them with the best VR headset around!
