15 Meta Quest 3 Tips & Tricks for New Owners

Quest 3 is here and comes with a bunch of quite helpful but often hidden features (most of which will also work on Quest 2!). Here’s a breakdown of tips and tricks you’ll definitely want to know.

Quest 3 Tips & Tricks Contents:

1. Quest 3 Screenshot & Video Capture Shortcut
2. Quest Voice Commands
3. Switch Between Controller-tracking and Hand-tracking
4. Force Screenshots & Videos to Actually Sync to Your Phone
5. Double-tap for Passthrough
6. Turn on 120Hz Refresh Rate
7. Extended Battery Mode
8. Set Your Own 360 Background in Home
9. Lock Individual Quest Apps for Privacy
10. Color Blind Mode and Text Size
11. Type More Easily with Swipe Keyboard on Quest 3
12. Share Your View with Friends to Your Phone or Browser
13. Launch Apps From Your Smartphone so They’re Ready to Go When Put the Headset on

1. Quest 3 Screenshot & Video Capture Shortcut

If you’re new to Quest 3 you’ll almost certainly want to capture screenshots and videos of your VR shenanigans to share with friends. Luckily this is easy with a shortcut you can do even in the middle of playing a game.

Screenshot Shortcut:

Start Video Capture Shortcut:

End Video Capture Shortcut:

You can also take screenshots and videos with Voice Commands which we’ll cover… right now.

2. Quest Voice Commands

Voice Commands on Quest are a very helpful but highly slept on feature that will let you launch games, search the store, navigate your headset, capture screenshots & video, and more.

How to Turn on Voice Commands on Quest 3:

How to Activate Voice Commands With Controllers

1. Double tap the Meta button (menu button on right controller)
2. Wait for an audio cue to know the headset is listening
3. Speak your Command

How to Activate Voice Commands With Hand-tracking

1. Hold your right hand up and face it toward you
2. Pinch and hold your fingers to open the Quest quick-menu
3. With your fingers still held, move your hand right to select Assistant
4. Release your pinch to activate Voice Commands

Tip: You can use Voice Commands anywhere in the headset, even in the middle of a game.

What You Can Do with Voice Commands on Quest:

• Launch games – “Open Beat Saber“
• Search the store – “Search the store for Electronauts“
• Navigate the headset – “Open Settings” | “Open Store” | “Open Library”
• Manage the headset – “Restart” | “Shut down” | “What’s my battery”
• Capture Photo & Video – “Capture screenshot” | “Capture video” | “Stop recording”

3. Switch Between Controller-tracking and Hand-tracking

For the most part, Quest 3 is pretty good about understanding that setting your controllers on a flat surface means you want to start using hand-tracking. But sometimes it gets a little confused. There’s a shortcut to guarantee the headset switches from controller-tracking to hand-tracking, but you’ll need to enable it first.

How to Enable ‘Double Tap Controllers for Hand-tracking’

1. In your headset open your app library and then open Settings
2. In settings navigate to Movement Tracking
3. Turn on ‘Double Tap Controllers for Hand-tracking’ switch

How to Activate ‘Double Tap Controllers for Hand-tracking’

• As the shortcut says, tap your controllers gently together twice and the headset will immediately switch to hand-tracking. To switch back to controllers just pick them up.

4. Force Screenshots & Videos to Actually Sync to Your Phone

When you capture screenshots and video on your headset it’s supposed to sync to your phone so you can access it through the Meta Quest app and share it from there how you please. In practice, media almost never automatically syncs for me. However, you can force individual captures to sync to your phone.

Force Screenshot or Video Sync on Quest 3

1. In your headset open Camera from the menu bar
2. Find the screenshot or video you want to sync
3. Click the ‘three dots’ menu on the file
4. Click Sync Now

Within a few seconds for screenshots, and maybe a minute or two for large videos, you can open your Meta Quest app and navigate to Gallery to find your synced media (make sure to ‘pull down to refresh’ on the gallery if your media isn’t appearing). From there you can download the photo or video onto your phone and share it as you wish. The time it takes to sync may vary depending on your internet speed.

5. Double-tap for Passthrough

This is an incredibly useful feature which is the quickest and easiest way to turn on passthrough to get a quick glimpse outside of your headset (even in the middle of a game).

Just gently double-trap on the side of the headset (you can even tap it with your controller) and the passthrough view will appear.

This feature should be enabled by default, but if it isn’t you can turn on Double-tap for Passthrough:

1. In your headset go to Settings → Physical Space → Passthrough
2. Turn on the ‘Double-tap for Passthrough’ switch

6. Turn on 120Hz Refresh Rate

By default, Quest 3 runs at a 90Hz refresh rate (which is how often the screen updates). For a smoother and lower latency experience, you can bump the refresh rate up to 120Hz.

How to Turn on 120Hz Refresh Rate on Quest 3:

1. In your headset go to Settings → System → Display
2. Turn on ‘120Hz Refresh Rate’ switch

Now the Quest menus should run at 120Hz be default, and any applications that support 120Hz will be able to use the mode too. Note that this may have a small impact on battery life.

7. Extended Battery Mode

Speaking of battery life on Quest 3, the headset has a built-in mode to squeeze the most power out of your headset.

How to Turn on Extended Battery Mode on Quest 3:

1. In your headset go to Settings → System → Power
2. Turn on ‘Extended Battery Mode’ switch

Turning on Extended Battery Mode will reduce the brightness, resolution, and likely framerate so the headset does less work and consumes battery more slowly.

8. Set Your Own 360 Background in Home

Meta offers a range of virtual environments for the Quest Home space and most use a 360 photo as their backdrop, but you can also use your own 360° photo as a backdrop.

How to Set 360 Background in Quest Home:

1. In your headset go to Settings → Personalization → Virtual Environment
2. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the list of Virtual Environments
3. Click the arrow next to ‘Custom Skybox View’
4. Select one of the default skyboxes, or select your own

Note that the default Quest 3 Home environment doesn’t show the backdrop (nor do a few others). Most of the environments will show your skybox but some give a better view than others, so experiment to find which one you like the most.

9. Lock Individual Quest Apps for Privacy

Its fun to share VR with friends and family. Since many different people might use your Quest 3, it’s nice to be able to lock specific apps so another person doesn’t stumble upon your Messenger chats, overwrite your game progress, or snoop through your browser history.

How to Lock Quest 3 Apps:

1. In your headset go to Settings → Apps→ App Locks
2. Select the app(s) you want to lock
3. Enter a password pattern by using your finger or controllers to connect the dots in a memorable pattern

Now any time you launch that app you’ll need to put in your password before it can be used. Apps must be minimized or fully closed in order to lock after you use them. Sleeping the headset will not lock the currently active app.

10. Color Blind Mode and Text Size

Did you know that an estimated 8% of men and 0.5% of women are colorblind? That’s almost as many as there are left-handers! If you’ve never checked for colorblindness, this 30 second test is a good place to start.

Luckily Quest 3 includes some accessibility options to make it easier to use for those who are colorblind or with limited vision.

How to Turn on Color Blind Mode:

1. In your headset go to Settings → Accessibility → Vision → Color Correction
2. Turn on Color Correction switch
3. Select from one of four colorblind types

How to Increase Font Size on Quest 3:

1. In your headset go to Settings → Accessibility → Vision
2. Under Text Size, choose between five different size options.

Your headset will need to restart after you change the text size, and unfortunately the size change will only apply to system menus.

11. Type More Easily with Swipe Keyboard on Quest 3

Typing with your index fingers or laser pointers isn’t terribly fast. If you want to pick up the pace, you can enable a ‘swipe to type’ feature on Quest 3 that works similarly to what you see on many smartphones.

How to Enable Swipe Typing:

1. In your headset go to Settings → Experimental
2. Turn on the Swipe Typing switch

If you don’t see the option in Settings → Experimental, it may have been moved to Settings → System → Keyboard.

Now any time the system keyboard pops up, you can use swipe typing with either your finger or your controllers.

12. Share Your View with Friends to Your Phone or Browser

Whether you want to be in the headset and show something to people outside of it, or they’re in the headset and you want to be able to see what they’re doing to help them, casting is the best way. You can cast a video view of what’s happening in the headset to your smartphone or any web browser.

How to Cast Quest 3 to Smartphone:

1. Make sure your smartphone and headset are both connected to the same Wi-Fi hotspot
2. Make sure you have the Meta Quest app installed on your smartphone
3. In the Meta Quest app, on the Home page (‘Feed’) an image of your headset will be shown at the top of the page
4. Click the ‘Cast’ button next to the headset

This will begin casting from the headset. The user inside will see a small light on their screen indicating that the headset is casting.

How to Cast Quest 3 to Browser:

1. On your PC or smart TV, navigate to oculus.com/cast
2. In your headset, press the Meta button (menu button on right controller)
3. Select the Camera icon from the menu bar
4. Select the Cast button at the top
5. Press the menu button to return to your game

13. Launch Apps From Your Smartphone so They’re Ready to Go When Put the Headset on

Usually when you decide to play VR you might need to do a little prep, like move a chair, take a swig of water, or fix your hair. Wouldn’t it be nice if the app you want to play could be loading in the background before you even put on your headset? Luckily that’s possible!

How to Launch Quest 3 Apps From Your Smartphone:

1. Make sure you have the Meta Quest app installed on your smartphone
2. In the Meta Quest app click Menu in the bottom navigation bar
3. Scroll all the way down the page and click My Library
4. Select the app you want to launch
5. Click the Launch button on the app page

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I hope everyone discovered at least one thing they didn’t know about their headset in this list! Are there any great Quest 3 tips & tricks we missed? Drop them in the comments below!

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