Essentials

Input

Updated: Apr 6, 2026

Meta Quest supports multiple input modalities so users can interact with your app in the way that feels most natural. Understanding these modalities helps you design interactions that are intuitive, comfortable, and accessible to the widest possible audience.

Controllers

Meta Quest ships with two Touch Plus controllers that provide buttons, thumbsticks, triggers, and haptic feedback. Controllers offer precise, low-latency input and are the most familiar interaction method for users coming from console or PC gaming.

Key capabilities:

Buttons and triggers — A, B, X, Y, triggers, grips, and thumbstick clicks

Thumbstick input — Analog directional input for locomotion, menu navigation, and camera control

Haptic feedback — Vibration motors in each controller for tactile responses

6DoF tracking — Full position and orientation tracking in 3D space

Battery management — Low-battery detection and graceful fallback behavior

When designing for controllers, map your most frequent actions to the most accessible buttons (triggers and grips) and reserve face buttons for secondary actions. Provide consistent haptic feedback to confirm interactions — a short pulse on grab, a longer buzz on impact.

Hand tracking

Hand tracking lets users interact with your app using their bare hands — no controllers required. The system tracks 26 joints per hand at high fidelity, enabling pinch gestures, poke interactions, and custom hand poses.

Key capabilities:

Skeleton tracking — 26 joints per hand with position, rotation, and confidence values

System gestures — Pinch, poke, and grab recognized by the platform

Custom poses — Define your own hand poses for app-specific interactions

Finger tracking — Individual finger curl and splay detection

Wide tracking volume — Hands are tracked across the headset’s field of view

Hand tracking works best for UI interactions, social experiences, and apps where picking up controllers would break immersion. For fast-paced games or precision aiming, controllers typically provide a better experience.

Design tip: Support both controllers and hand tracking from the start. Users switch between them freely, and your app should handle the transition seamlessly. Design your core interaction model to be input-agnostic whenever possible.

Gaze and eye tracking

Eye tracking is available on Meta Quest Pro and enables gaze-based interactions and performance optimizations like eye-tracked foveated rendering. Gaze direction can drive UI focus, aim assist, and analytics about where users look in your scene. Quest 3 and Quest 3S do not have eye tracking hardware.

Key capabilities (Quest Pro only):

Gaze direction — Where the user is looking in 3D space

Eye openness — Blink detection and eye openness values

Eye-tracked foveated rendering — Render at full resolution only where the user looks, reducing GPU workload

Gaze-based UI — Highlight or activate elements when the user looks at them

Eye tracking data is sensitive. Follow Meta’s data use policies and only request eye tracking permissions when your app genuinely needs them. Always provide a fallback for users on devices without eye tracking (Quest 3, Quest 3S) or users who decline the permission.

Hybrid input: When your app supports both controllers and hand tracking simultaneously, use the XR_EXT_hand_tracking_data_source extension to detect whether hand tracker data is driven by a physical controller or bare hands. This helps you adjust interaction behavior based on the actual input source.

Microgestures

Microgestures are subtle, small-amplitude hand movements like finger taps and wrist flicks. They enable quick, lightweight interactions without requiring large arm movements — useful for confirming selections, scrolling, or triggering shortcuts.

Microgestures work best as complements to other input modalities, not as primary interaction methods. They reduce fatigue for repeated actions and feel natural for users who are already comfortable with hand tracking.

Gamepads and keyboards

Meta Quest also supports Bluetooth gamepads and keyboards for apps that need traditional input. Gamepads provide a familiar console-style experience for games, while keyboards enable text-heavy workflows in productivity apps.

Bluetooth gamepads — Standard HID gamepads connect wirelessly for game input

Bluetooth keyboards — Physical keyboards for text input in productivity and browsing apps

Mouse input — USB and Bluetooth mice work with 2D panel apps running on Horizon OS

These input methods are especially relevant for Android panel apps, where users may expect desktop-style interaction.