Valve looking to bring hand tracking to Steam Link for Meta Quest
*Header image is referential and showcases hand tracking on Oculus Quest. | Image credit — Meta
Hand tracking, when implemented correctly, can make for very immersive VR experiences. It also feels quite futuristic over simple controllers, in my opinion. And Valve seems to be trying to implement hand tracking into Steam Link, which you can use to stream PC VR games to your headset.
Hand tracking on VR headsets can be used both for gaming as well as navigating the UI. Take the Apple Vision Pro, for example. There are no controllers for that headset, and everything is done via hand and eye tracking. This has also led to genius workarounds like the ALVR app, which lets you play Steam PC VR games on Vision Pro using hand tracking.
What precisely Valve plans to use hand tracking for isn’t clear. Perhaps SteamVR will allow you to navigate more like visionOS. Or maybe Valve plans to bring hand tracking to headsets that don’t support it or aren’t very good at it. VR hardware analyst Bradley Lynch spotted a mention of hand tracking support in some patch notes.
Hand tracking, when implemented correctly, can make for very immersive VR experiences. It also feels quite futuristic over simple controllers, in my opinion. And Valve seems to be trying to implement hand tracking into Steam Link, which you can use to stream PC VR games to your headset.
Hand tracking on VR headsets can be used both for gaming as well as navigating the UI. Take the Apple Vision Pro, for example. There are no controllers for that headset, and everything is done via hand and eye tracking. This has also led to genius workarounds like the ALVR app, which lets you play Steam PC VR games on Vision Pro using hand tracking.
What precisely Valve plans to use hand tracking for isn’t clear. Perhaps SteamVR will allow you to navigate more like visionOS. Or maybe Valve plans to bring hand tracking to headsets that don’t support it or aren’t very good at it. VR hardware analyst Bradley Lynch spotted a mention of hand tracking support in some patch notes.
Looks like Steam Link for Quest will add hand tracking soon in a Beta?
— Brad Lynch (@SadlyItsBradley) August 8, 2024
They originally pushed the 2.8 Beta patch notes with the added support in the log. But quickly removed it pic.twitter.com/dA1E2dFvlt
If Valve is bringing hand tracking support to Steam Link, then it’s probably still under development given that the mention was removed from the patch notes. There’s also the very unlikely chance that this was a complete mistake because someone mixed up the patch notes with some other Valve project. Half-Life: Alyx 2, anyone? We live in hope.
The Meta Quest 3 also has hand tracking. | Video credit — Meta
Hand tracking is oftentimes less accurate or intuitive than dedicated controllers when it comes to gaming. Apple and Meta have gotten quite good at it, but there’s still a long way to go.
But, as Valve once blew away the VR world with Half-Life: Alyx, I will keep my fingers crossed that it’s cooking up something revolutionary once more.
But, as Valve once blew away the VR world with Half-Life: Alyx, I will keep my fingers crossed that it’s cooking up something revolutionary once more.
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