Quest 3's new controllers have been approved by the US FCC.
Meta Quest 3 was announced last month as launching later this year, starting at $500. It will come with Meta's new Touch Plus controllers, which have neither the rings of Quest 2's Touch controllers nor the cameras of the self-tracking Touch Pro controllers.
According to Meta's CTO, Touch Plus has infrared LEDs around the face instead of on a ring. Quest 3 always continuously runs its controller-free hand tracking, and this is fused with the tracking of the LEDs on the controllers when they're in use.
Some have speculated that Quest 3 may have controller tracking issues in some games, but Beat Saber's co-founder denied this, and a Meta employee claimed Touch Plus tracking is good enough for the game's Expert+ difficulty.
Losing the ring has the advantage of letting you bring the controllers much closer together at any angle. That may sound unimportant, but it opens up new precise hand-to-hand interactions and improves existing ones such as reloading firearms.
David Heaney
The FCC is the US regulatory agency with responsibility over wireless frequency use. Its approval is necessary to sell a device with wireless capabilities in the US market.
The FCC documents confirm Touch Plus uses the same 2.4 GHz wireless spectrum as all Meta's previous controllers, though with a slightly reduced signal power output.
The documents also reveal that Touch Plus take a single AA battery each, as Quest 2's Touch do. That means Touch Pro will remain Meta's only controllers with a built-in rechargeable battery.
The Quest 3 headset itself hasn't received FCC approval yet, and Meta hasn't yet revealed the exact launch date of Quest 3. Meta launched Quest 2 and Quest Pro at its yearly Connect conference though, and this year it's scheduled for September 27.
