Meta Quest v72 is starting to roll out, bringing significantly improved hand tracking, passthrough keyboard cutout, a new Gallery app, experimental Windows 11 integration, and more.
As with all Quest updates, v72 "rolls out" gradually, so it may take a few days or even weeks for your headset to get the v72 update. Further, Meta rolls out some features separately to the main update itself, so even having the update doesn't guarantee having everything listed yet.
Hand Tracking 2.3
The flagship improvement in Quest v72 is to controller-free hand tracking.
Meta says the new Hand Tracking 2.3 model will be "gradually rolling out" over "the next few weeks", bringing enhanced stability, improved accuracy, and lower latency.
Additionally, Meta is making the following improvements to the hand tracking UX in Quest v72:
• We’re making the hand cursor more stable and responsive when navigating the universal menu.
• We’re stabilizing the cursor while pinching, ensuring it’s easier to select what you want to select.
• We’re improving the responsiveness and stability of pinch-and-drag interactions, like dragging a Browser tab into a new window.
• We’re making it easier to use hands in confined spaces, which are especially common in Travel Mode.
• Finally, we’re adding a new hand ray visualization to help with locating and targeting with the cursor.
The company says that it already made unannounced improvements to hand tracking throughout the year, specifically to "hand stealing", meaning the headset "is now better at focusing on your hands instead of your friends’ hands, your feet, or even your cat".
Hand Tracking 2.3 continues the company's trend of continuously improving controller-free hand tracking since adding it to the original Oculus Quest more than five years ago.
Experimental Windows 11 Integration
David Heaney
Passthrough Cutout For Any Keyboard
Previously, Quest's Horizon OS could track a limited number of connected Bluetooth keyboards while in immersive VR mode, and render the keyboard as a virtual object aligned to its real position.
The old behavior, supporting a limited number of keyboards, and only while connected to the headset.
But attempting to model every possible Bluetooth keyboard would be a losing battle. In v71, Quest 3 and Quest 3S will instead track any keyboard-looking object within its view, even those not connected. When your hands are near the keyboard it will show it as a passthrough cutout, and when they aren't it will simply show the bounds of the keyboard as a white rectangle.
This new behaviour was spotted in the Public Test Channel (PTC) build of v71, which seemed to suggest it would publicly launch with v71, but it's now arriving in v72, according to Meta.
The new behavior, which should work for any keyboard, even those not connected to the headset.
With the addition of the new behaviour, the old behaviour is being deprecated, which also means that keyboard tracking will no longer work on Quest 2 and Quest Pro.
Apple added a somewhat similar feature called Keyboard Breakthrough to visionOS 2, though it only works with a connected Apple Magic Keyboard, and doesn't have the white outline.
New Media Gallery App
Previously, you would access media on Quest's Horizon OS via two built-in apps: Camera and Files. But the former is focused on capturing media, while the latter is a general file manager.
Quest v72 brings a new Gallery app to Horizon OS, which Meta says gives you easy access to "any videos (spatial or otherwise), photos, screenshots, and more".
It's unclear if new Gallery app will integrate with Camera and Files in some way, or whether it's just a separate focused avenue for viewing media.
Automatic Call Captions
Quest v72 adds a new Accessibility option called Call Captions, which shows a live transcript of what the other people on the call are saying as floating text in a dedicated window, including who said it.
Apple's visionOS 2 has system-wide Live Captions, not just for calls, and Meta says it's working on the same.
Travel Mode Indicator
Since Quest headsets got a Travel Mode earlier this year, to enable them to be used in moving vehicles like trains and airplanes, some users have accidentally left it turned on at home and complained about tracking issues.
David Heaney
In Quest v72, Meta says it's adding an indicator to the system menu bar when Travel Mode is enabled, which should prevent this from happening.
Frictionless Home Environment
Quest 3 headsets start in passthrough mode. When you click the button to toggle into immersive mode, loading your virtual home environment, you normally had to confirm the room-scale boundary or draw a new one if the headset can't recognize your room.
With v72, Meta says you'll now be loaded into a stationary boundary by default. You'll only have to draw a room-scale boundary when launching into an immersive VR app, if you don't already have one.
However, we should note that the company actually originally said this would arrive in v69, and it didn't, continuing the confusing trend of Meta putting things in the official Horizon OS changelog that aren't actually there in the build.
Instagram Direct Messages
Meta says Quest v72 brings direct messages to the Instagram app on Horizon OS.
"Now you can easily share Reels, Stories, and posts with friends—or just chat about weekend plans—from within the Instagram app on Quest. Use dictation to cut down on the amount of typing you need to do, or cut it out entirely and send voice messages instead".
Meta's Messenger and WhatsApp apps are already available on Horizon OS, so this completes its messaging trifecta.
