Oculus Quest Reveals Upcoming PC Support, Hand Tracking

VR is a relatively young platform. But it grows bigger every day. And right now, the Oculus Quest is leading the charge. That lead is only reinforced with a recent announcement, revealing PC support and hand tracking for the wireless VR headset.

According to an announcement by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Oculus Quest, a standalone wireless VR set, will be receiving an update in November that will allow it to function as a PC-powered system. This will allow the headset to play all of the games the Oculus Rift S would be capable of while maintaining a similar quality of player.

The Quest was a critical success upon release, with Oculus selling them as fast as they're being made. This was largely due to their wireless standalone functionality, offering moderate-quality VR without the need for a powerful PC to run it, nor a need for cords and cables. But with portability came sacrifice. The internal processor is below average in VR terms, making it a less satisfactory visual experience. And what playtime you have was limited to the capacity of the internal battery.

By enabling an option to use the headset with a PC, you can remedy both of these issues while falling back on the shortcomings of the Quest. Zuckerberg describes it as Your Quest is basically a Rift now, too.

But that's not all the Quest will be getting. At the same press event, the company announced a new, commonly sought after feature for the console: hand tracking.



Using the front cameras on the Quest headset, this new feature will track the location and position of the users' hands and fingers. This will open up a new avenue of user interaction for various VR apps and games. Oculus describes the upcoming feature as another broken barrier for newcomers to VR. Hands are always with you and never need batteries. (sorry to folks with disabilities).

Hand tracking on the Quest will release in early 2020 as an experimental build for developers. You can expect the feature to be introduced to various VR content alongside the standard controller options.

The Oculus Quest is really shaping up to be an impressive VR headset.