Facebook’s VP of Augmented and Virtual Reality Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth commented on support for keyboard tracking on the Quest platform, stating that expanding to more keyboard models is proving harder than expected.
The comment came as part of Bosworth’s latest Instagram AMA (Ask Me Anything) session. Here’s a transcription of the full question and answer from Bosworth:
Any idea when to expect more keyboard support? UK version of K830 is not even supported.
“We really want to support all keyboards, that’s the goal, and use machine learning to do that with computer vision. It’s proven a lot harder than we expected it to, particularly because you occlude the keyboard with your fingers, so right now it’s limited, obviously we want to expand it, I don’t have a timeline.”
It’s interesting to hear that the aim is to support tracking with any Bluetooth keyboard and not just select models. Currently, the Quest can connect to any Bluetooth-enabled keyboard for use in Oculus Browser. However, this only connects the keyboard and doesn’t track it.
There’s only one keyboard that currently supports full tracking on Quest – the Logitech K830. Unlike other keyboards, connecting the K830 to your Quest will allow its position to be tracked and represented in VR with a virtual model. Other keyboards can connect to the Quest via Bluetooth, but their position won’t be tracked and represented in the same way.
If Bosworth and the Facebook Virtual Reality Labs team are able to eventually add tracking support to any Bluetooth keyboard model, it would be a huge boon to Infinite Office. More and more features are being added to the Quest as part of Infinite Office, expanding the device’s remote work and virtual office capabilities.
Alongside keyboard tracking, the Quest can now track your desk and show your phone’s notifications in VR. You can read more about how to use Infinite Office features on Quest here.
