Imagine you’re immersed in VR, whether playing or working, and suddenly you need to quickly check something in your notebook sitting on your physical desk. It can be quite troublesome to remove your headset just for a quick second, right? Luckily, we have the Passthrough feature in Meta Quest 3. In this article, we will share with you on how to turn on and turn off the Passthrough feature on your Meta Quest 3.
What is Passthrough?
Passthrough is a feature to allow you to ‘step’ outside of your virtual world to see your real-life surroundings. Simply said, it is an easy way to switch back and forth between the virtual world and the real world.
You might want to use this feature when playing the MR (Mixed Reality) games. Or when you encounter situations such as when somebody calls your name, checking your notes and stuffs on your physical desk, your partner ask for some quick help, quick check on your pets whereabout etc.
Ok now, let’s go to our main agenda. There are three ways how you can turn on and off the Passthrough on your Meta Quest 3.
Method 1: Through the Universal Menu
- First, bring up the Universal Menu by clicking the Meta button on the right Touch Plus Controller. You may refer to Figure 1 below.
- At the Universal Menu, select the Passthrough icon like in Figure 2 below. When you highlight it, it will show “Enter passthrough“.
- Next, you can see your real-life or real-time environment around you (Figure 3).
- When you want to turn off the Passthrough or going back to the virtual world, select the Passthrough icon again. When you highlight it, it will show “Enter immersive” as in Figure 4 below.
- Now, you are back to the virtual environment in second.
Our Comment: Most of the time, we will use this approach to turn on and off the Passthrough. This is because, most of the time, the Touch Plus Controllers are in our hand.
Method 2: Double Tapping the Headset
- While wearing the headset, tap the right side of your headset twice. Tap it gently. You may refer to Figure 5 below.
- Now, you can see your real-life or real-time environment around you.
- To turn off the Passthrough, double tap again the right side of your headset.
- Now, you will be back in the virtual environment.
- Note: If it is not working, then you must ensure that the “Double Tap” feature for the Passthrough is turn on. To do this, you open the Universal Menu, then click on the Quick Settings. After that click on the Settings. Next, click on the Environment Setup. After that, click on the Passthrough. Next, turn on the “Double tap for Passthrough” as shown in Figure 6 below.
Our Comment: This is the quickest way to turn on and off the Passthrough. But, we seldom use it since we afraid that we accidentally tap it too hard that it might have impact to the headset in the long term.
Method 3: Through the Settings
- First, bring up the Universal Menu by clicking the Meta button on the right Touch Plus Controller. You may refer to Figure 1 above.
- Go to the left side of the Universal Menu and click on the Clock. When you highlight it, it will show “Quick settings” as in Figure 7 below.
- The Quick Settings window will appear.
- Select the Passthrough. At this moment the status is “Off” as shown in Figure 8 below.
- Now, you can see your real-life or real-time environment around you.
- To turn off the Passthrough, repeat step number 1 until 4. The difference is that, now the Passthrough status is “On” as shown in Figure 9 below.
- Now, you will be back in the virtual world.
Our Comment: We think this is the longest way to do this. So, we rarely use this approach.
Lastly…
That’s all for now guys. Hope this simple article will benefit you when using Meta Quest 3. If you would like to see other tutorials, you can check it here. See you in another tutorial!
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