Well I've got a quest 3s and I've heard that you can use them in the dark. I've tried it but for then it appears this pop up telling you to turn ok the lights that disappears 3 seconds later. While seeing the pop up, the hand tracking is perfect, even in darkness. But the moment it disappears, the hand tracking stops working.
So, if the quest 3s is capable of tracking you in darkness, why I can't be using the menus in the dark just to watch a series.
It uses cameras to track your hands and map the room, so it needs light to be able to see them. If you want to use it in the dark, you will need to illuminate your room using an infrared light source, as the cameras can also see in the infrared spectrum. Without it, it won't be able to keep track of your location in the room, even if the hand tracking is still OK. That said, I have been able to watch movies in the dark lying on my bed, without getting any messages about being in the dark. I think I had my headset in Travel Mode, and I also enabled the experimental(?) setting that enables the headset to be used lying down. I used the controllers, not hand tracking btw.
I've also been able to just lie down and use it in dark if I didn't move. I was asking why when the message of turning on lights my hand tracking is GOOD and after the pop up it just disappears completely. Which I don't understand. Because this means that it IS able to hand track in darkness.
I've also discovered that while using its vídeo reproductor on a 180° experience, I was able to use the hand tracking, even if it wasn't perfect.
Also, even though I haven't tried it, I've seen people playing some games, that use hand tracking, in the dark perfectly
I'm curious why in this exact situations the hand tracking works but then it just deactivates completely for example just in the menu.
Sorry for any misspellings, I'm Spanish.
Hola tirilla!
Nos tomamos la libertad de responder en español con la intención de que te sea mas cómodo leer nuestro comentario. Dejame saber si prefieres continuar comunicándote con nosotros en Ingles.
Como steve_40 mencionó anteriormente, las Quest 3s pueden funcionar en la oscuridad si cuentas con una fuente de luz infrarroja ya que nuestras gafas cuentan con receptores de este tipo y pueden permitirte jugar en un ambiente mas oscuro. No obstante, sin la fuente de luz infrarroja, los receptores tendrán dificultades para seguir tus movimientos apropiadamente.
Cuando te encuentras acostado, ya que te encuentras contra una superficie solida, el dispositivo tiene mas facilidad de rastrear los movimientos ya que es un fondo plano y no tiene profundidad.
Espero que este mensaje sirva para aclarar tus dudas con respecto a los receptores de movimiento en tu dispositivo, puedes visitar este enlace sobre Seguimiento de tus Gafas Meta. Ademas, puedes enviarnos un mensaje privado al hacer click en nuestra imagen de perfil o visitando el siguiente enlace: https://www.meta.com/help/support/
¡Qué tengas una excelente semana!
This was working just fine before the latest update in Jul 2025. I had no issues using my Quest 3s in complete darkness because the IR emitters would automatically turn on in darkness.
The only workaround is to open an app that supports VR, like Youtube, then open your app menu or open a floating screen and launch anything you want. Only that way the IR emitters stay on without going on and off every 2-3 seconds causing that annoying message to be shown.
This is clearly a software bug and others have reported the same exact thing on various communities such as reddit.
Everyone, I just found the bug. Disable physical keyboard passthrough, and the IR illuminators will stay on again.
settings -> devices -> keyboard -> "show my keyboard" turn that off.
