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Azoreal
New Participant
June 30, 2025
Solved

IR Night vision mode in Quest 3

Hi. I tried to contact support directly to clarify this, but support seems clueless about the topic and my ticket got closed without proper response.

So basically, some time ago I watched a 2 year old video on youtube and got exceptionally excited about possibility of having budget night vision so I ordered a Quest 3 along with kkcobvr IR emitter, only to discover that this feature, the infra red view, which I thought would automatically turn on if environment is dark enough, does not seem to exist. I did not fully understand whether a guy in video accessed it through some experimental early access app or anything of that sort, but the other person in this video comments section says that infra red view got patched out because it was against specific laws in the United States.
So, could someone please clarify current situation with the feature? Did it actually exist and whether it was only available through specific software? Can it still be accessed in any way? And if not, does Meta have any plans on enabling it some time later? I need to mention that I am not from United States and in my country such devices are fully legal, even actual (non IR based) night vision goggles (of non military grade I guess) are used for hunting, of course they cost significantly more.

    kojack
    kojackAnswer
    Honored Contributor
    July 1, 2025

    Here's a diagram I found.

    The Quest 3 has 6 cameras. 4 of them are IR capable monochrome cameras used for tracking (the green circles above). Two of them are colour cameras that can't see IR (the red circles). The colour cameras are the ones that you see in the headset.

    The Quests before the Quest 3 only had the 4 IR capable cameras (well, 5 on the Rift-S), so their passthrough was very poor, but could see IR.

    Using the recently released camera SDK, it might be possible for developers to get access to the IR camera feeds. I'm not sure, I haven't tried. But the docs did mention how to check if a camera is one of the colour cameras, which implies the non colour cameras must be possible.

    Author: Oculus Monitor , Auto Oculus Touch , Forum Dark Mode , Phantom Touch Remover , X-Plane Fixer Hardware: Threadripper 1950x, MSI Gaming Trio 2080TI, Asrock X399 Taich Headsets: Wrap 1200VR, DK1, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, GearVR, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Reverb G2, Quest 3
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    5 replies

    kojack
    kojack
    Honored Contributor
    July 1, 2025

    The video is a Quest 2. It used the wide spectrum monochrome cameras (visible and IR) for the passthrough video.

    But the Quest 3 that you bought uses purely visible spectrum colour cameras for the passthrough video. The wide spectrum visible and IR cameras are only used for tracking, it never shows them to you. 

    Basically only the Quest 1, 2 and Rift-S show you an IR capable view. The Quest 3, 3S and Pro all show colour views with no IR.

     

    Aldi occasionally sells full night vision devices for about a quarter of the price of a Quest 3. I've got one.

     

    Author: Oculus Monitor , Auto Oculus Touch , Forum Dark Mode , Phantom Touch Remover , X-Plane Fixer Hardware: Threadripper 1950x, MSI Gaming Trio 2080TI, Asrock X399 Taich Headsets: Wrap 1200VR, DK1, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, GearVR, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Reverb G2, Quest 3
    AzorealAuthor
    New Participant
    July 1, 2025

    Thanks for the reply, It only got me more confused, though. If IR lights are used for tracking, and I can for sure tell it does work better in darkness when my IR emitter is plugged in, doesn't that mean that Quest 3 cameras are still fully functional in terms of seeing IR spectrum? So it is just blocked on the program level and not shown to the user, correct?

    kojack
    kojackAnswer
    Honored Contributor
    July 1, 2025

    Here's a diagram I found.

    The Quest 3 has 6 cameras. 4 of them are IR capable monochrome cameras used for tracking (the green circles above). Two of them are colour cameras that can't see IR (the red circles). The colour cameras are the ones that you see in the headset.

    The Quests before the Quest 3 only had the 4 IR capable cameras (well, 5 on the Rift-S), so their passthrough was very poor, but could see IR.

    Using the recently released camera SDK, it might be possible for developers to get access to the IR camera feeds. I'm not sure, I haven't tried. But the docs did mention how to check if a camera is one of the colour cameras, which implies the non colour cameras must be possible.

    Author: Oculus Monitor , Auto Oculus Touch , Forum Dark Mode , Phantom Touch Remover , X-Plane Fixer Hardware: Threadripper 1950x, MSI Gaming Trio 2080TI, Asrock X399 Taich Headsets: Wrap 1200VR, DK1, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, GearVR, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Reverb G2, Quest 3
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