Meta Quest games that primarily use hand tracking are extremely cool, there’s no doubt about it. Being able to interact with a virtual world using your actual hands feels like something out of a sci-fi movie, but that sense of realism and interaction also means that inputs are a bit more restrictive than when using controllers with joysticks and buttons.
That means when playing a game like Dimensional Double Shift, you can interact with the world and other players like never before. Still, it’s not as easy to perform system tasks like taking a screenshot, recording a video, or muting your microphone. Thankfully, there’s a solution for that, but it’s a bit hidden within the system menu.
How to enable Expanded Quick Actions
On your Meta Quest headset, press the home button on the right controller or perform the home action with your hands by pinching your index and thumb together while your palm is facing you (as pictured above). This will bring up the Universal Menu Bar, which includes shortcuts to the app drawer, recent and pinned apps, and settings. Next, click on the Quick Settings panel, which is a button on the left side of the menu bar that shows the time, Wi-Fi status, and battery.
After that, you’re going to want to click on Settings in the top right corner, then select Movement Tracking from the left-side menu. In this section, you’ll find the option for enabling hand tracking and Expanded Quick Actions. Ensure that hand tracking is enabled, then tap the Expanded Quick Actions toggle to enable it.
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Now, when you face your palm toward you, pinch your index and thumb together and hold them for a second, and a more robust action menu will appear. This unlocks the aforementioned menu that contains mute, screen record, recenter, mixed reality, and home buttons. Expanded Quick Actions works on any Meta Quest headset, but it’s best on a Quest 3 or Quest 3S since those headsets feature full-color mixed reality vision.
If you want to just go home, you can still quickly tap your index and thumb together to perform the home gesture. While you’re in this menu, feel free to tweak a few settings as you see fit. One that’s particularly useful is “double tap controllers for hand tracking,” which lets you instantly swap between controller-based and hand tracking methods without having to put the controllers down and wait for them to go to sleep.
Hand tracking can’t be used everywhere, but I’ve found myself defaulting to it when putting my Quest on before I launch anything, and I often find myself working from my headset without using controllers at all. It’s genuinely impressive how far hand tracking has come along and how it’s legitimately a replacement for controllers in many situations, especially now when you can pull up quick menus with handy actions with just a pinch.
The Meta Quest 3 comes packed with impressive motion-tracked controllers and thousands of games made for the platform, but you can also put the controllers down and use your own hands to explore many games and experiences. What are you waiting for? VR is calling. Time to answer!
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