How to use Meta Quest 2 as an AR headset: Passthrough, multitasking, hand tracking and more

The Meta Quest 2 is arguably the most popular VR headset right now, thanks to its price, simplicity and availability. And while it started as a standalone VR headset for gamers, it gradually evolved into much more.

Meta kept adding exciting new features to it, which basically turned it into an AR headset too (augmented reality), not just mere VR (virtual reality)!

With its successor – the Quest 3 – now on the horizon, we can see that Meta's focus on AR is clearly stronger than ever, as the Quest 3 offers even better (color!) passthrough, and packs a depth sensor, among other features.

So what if you want to take full advantage of your wonderfully exciting Quest headset, and take a stab at its AR capabilities? Well, we're here to help get you started!

How to enable passthrough and get an AR experience; see the real world behind the virtual interface

A crowning feature of any good AR headset is its ability to track your head, and show you digital objects over the real world. By default, the Quest 2 blocks the real world from your view, fully immersing you into a VR experience, but we can change that.

All we need to do is enable passthrough. This is easier than ever in the latest Quest 2 software:

• Step 1 – In your Quest 2's home, click on the clock (bottom right corner of the taskbar)
• Step 2 – Click "Passthrough" to start seeing your real-world environment

With passthrough enabled, your Quest 2 will show you your real-world environment, as opposed to a digital home environment. It utilizes its front cameras for this, which as you may expect, don't deliver the most crisp (or even a color) experience, but it's cool nonetheless.

And again, the Quest 3 will have color passthrough, and likely better and sharper cameras for it, so stay tuned, we'll check it out when it's available!

Enable multi-window apps, and start multitasking in AR like a (futuristic) boss

Did you know your Quest 2 was actually a multi-tasking powerhouse? Well, it's not exactly an iPad on your face, like Apple's Vision Pro might just be, meaning your apps for productivity are limited, but still – you can run up to three of them at the same time, in AR!

Whether those are three web browser windows, or one web browser, one file manager, and say, one photo viewer (this is pretty limited to Meta's non-fullscreen built-in apps, unfortunately), you can do a lot simultaneously. Heck, play three YouTube videos from the web browser, or a podcast, while reading PhoneArena on another floating window – the web browser alone offers a lot of productivity and multitasking opportunities.

So, as with color passthrough, getting multi-window apps working is simpler than ever on the latest Quest 2 software:

• Step 1 – In your Quest 2's home, click on the clock (bottom right corner of the taskbar)
• Step 2 – Click "Multi-window" to enable it

The perspective of the user interface will change a bit, seemingly moving further away and expanding. Now if you open the web browser, you'll notice you can not only resize it, but grab it and move it in one of three dedicated spots for app windows.

Not just that, but you can open up to three instances of the web browser, one in each of those spots! Simply drag and drop the web browser icon from the dock on the bottom of your view, into one of those three window spots.

You can then resize those to your liking, close them, or replace them with other non-fullscreen apps that support multi-window (pretty much just the built-in ones from Meta).

In any case, you are now experiencing what could very much be the future! Web browsing and multitasking in augmented reality! And on that affordable headset you thought was for VR gaming only!

Once again, a reminder that this experience will be way better and more impressive on the Quest 3, but hey, even on the Quest 2 – it's pretty exciting.

Put down the controllers and use your hands to do things in AR

Yes, we can take this a step further, and make your Quest 2 feel even less like a VR headset and more like an AR one. You can choose to stop using its battery-powered controllers, and have it track your hands instead; use those for navigating in AR.

Indeed, your Quest 2 can track your hands and hand gestures if you enable a feature for it, and that allows you to use your nature-given "controllers" for pretty much anything the actual controllers are used for. Well, except for gaming. But for that AR multi-window experience we mentioned earlier – it's perfect!

We went in-depth on how to enable hand tracking on the Quest 2 in this article, so be sure to check it out for details, but in short:

• Step 1 – In your Quest 2's home, click on the clock (bottom right corner of the taskbar)
• Step 2 – Click on "Settings" (top right corner)
• Step 3 – Click on "Movement Tracking"
• Step 4 – Click on "Hand Tracking" to enable it

In the hand tracking article linked above, we explain all the gestures you can do with your hands, and how to do them properly to navigate through the user interface, so be sure to check it out!

With the Hand Tracking feature enabled, you can now use your hands as virtual pointers, but that's not enough, and we can take it further! Here's how…

Enable the experimental Direct Touch feature for… what else? The ability to "touch" your AR content!

This is a recent, and experimental feature you can enable to further enhance your hand-driven AR experience on your Quest 2 headset, and it's basically a must-enable, so here's how to do that:

• Step 1 – In your Quest 2's home, click on the clock (bottom right corner of the taskbar)
• Step 2 – Click on "Settings" (top right corner)
• Step 3 – Click on "Experimental"
• Step 4 – Click on "Direct Touch" to enable it

As mentioned before, Direct Touch compliments hand tracking by letting you naturally using your index finger to "press" things from the user interface (buttons, toggles, etc.), instead of just pointing a virtual cursor at them and pinching in the air, which is what "Hand Tracking" alone does.

With Direct Touch enabled, you can use your hands and fingers to open apps and scroll through web pages just as if you have a virtual iPad right in front of your face! You reach out and press with your index finger – simple enough!

It takes your Quest 2 AR experience to the next level for sure, so you definitely have to give it a try!

Perhaps the coolest result from enabling those latter two features (at least in my opinion) is that web browsing in AR feels vastly more natural, and so much more futuristic.

We've already established that now you can open up to three web browsers floating in the air, in your AR world. But with those features on, you can actually place your finger where those web browser windows are and swipe up or swipe down, again, just like you would on a tablet. It's like you're actually touching those virtual objects with your hands, and the fact that it's all happening in AR makes it that much more magical.

So, welcome to an early preview of what the future might just be!