Meta Quest

Meta Quest Touch controllers work as an ordinary PC gamepad. The pair fuses into a single controller, so your existing mappings, macros, shift layers and emulation outputs apply to them with nothing to reconfigure.

Reading them is free, and you will find it under Setup, Meta Quest.

What you need

• A Quest 3 or Quest 3S and its Touch controllers. That pair is what this is built and tested for.
• Meta's desktop app, installed, running and signed in. OmniControl talks to your Quest through Meta's own PC software, not directly.
• A Link cable, or Air Link over your network. Both work the same for controllers.
• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.

Quest support is off until you turn it on. With it off, nothing on this page runs and a PC with no headset never reaches any of it.

Setting it up

The Meta Quest page checks each of these rather than describing them, and collapses the card once they pass.

1. Press Turn on at the top of the page.
2. Install the Meta desktop app and sign in. If OmniControl cannot see it, nothing further can work.
3. Connect your headset with Link or Air Link.
4. Wake both controllers. Press a button on each one. They sleep quickly when set down, which is the controllers' own behaviour.
5. Tell OmniControl to use the Quest. This step appears only when it applies. A plugged-in pad always wins the active slot, deliberately, so that turning this on cannot take the slot from a controller you are holding. If another controller is connected, the Quest does nothing at all, with no error, until you press Use the Quest.

Above the setup card, the Signal path shows headset, OmniControl, the output and your game, with each link live, being made, or dead. It is the fastest way to see which end of the chain is the problem.

How your Quest reaches the game

Under How it works in your game there are two choices, and they are the same two any controller has.

• A game controller. Your game sees an Xbox controller. Best for anything with controller support, and the only option for games that refuse a mouse. This is Emulation.
• Keyboard and mouse. Your game sees key presses and mouse movement. Best for shooters that treat a controller as second class, and for anything with no controller support at all.

This setting belongs to the active profile, not to the Quest, so it follows your profile the way it does for any other pad.

Your headset while it runs

The default is what almost everyone wants. It reads the controllers without ever taking the display, which is why the headset can sit on the desk.

The one thing it cannot do is take input away from Meta's own environment. Because OmniControl is not the app showing you the screen, Meta's environment stays in front and acts on the same presses: squeezing a grip and moving drags its desktop panel, and the trigger clicks whatever the ray is over. No setting changes this.

• Best fix: take the headset off and play on your monitor. The controllers keep working and there is nothing in there to disturb.
• Wearing it anyway: point the controllers at the floor or off to one side, then recentre. Meta only grabs what you are aiming at, so most of the accidental dragging stops. Buttons can still reach it.
• Or: switch to Take over the headset, and the Meta environment goes away entirely, along with your view.

Aiming with your hands

Under Motion aiming you pick how the aim hand steers the camera.

• The thumbstick, which is how a normal controller aims. Nothing to learn and nothing to recentre.
• Your hand, which points where you want to aim. The thumbstick stops aiming while this is on, so the two cannot fight over one camera.
• Both, coarse turns on the stick and fine tracking with your hand. They add together, so start with a lower sensitivity than you would use for either alone.

Only the aim hand ever aims, and it aims with one thing at a time. The other hand's stick carries on doing whatever your mapping says.

Your hand can drive the mouse, which keeps turning the view while you turn and works whether or not a virtual controller is running, or the aim stick, where your hand's angle is the stick position: hold it still and the camera stops, bring it back to centre and the stick centres. The aim stick does nothing unless a virtual controller is running, so it needs Emulation, which is part of Pro.

Engagement is always on, while held or toggled, from a grip, a trigger or a stick click. You can recentre from a button, or have it recentre automatically when aiming starts. Mouse aiming has sensitivity, smoothing, deadzone and acceleration; stick aiming has a full-turn angle, a curve and a maximum output. Both have invert switches for X and Y, and there is a hotkey that hands aiming back to the thumbstick mid-game.

If aiming comes out rotated, the pointing direction dropdown is the fix. No specification pins which way a Touch controller counts as pointing.

Triggers and grips

A Touch pair has four analog controls, a trigger and a grip on each hand, and a controller has two analog slots. So each hand chooses which one is analog. The other one still arrives, as that hand's shoulder button: choose the trigger and the grip becomes LB or RB, choose the grip and the trigger does.

What the pair does not have

Eleven controls are bindable per pair: four face buttons, two triggers, two grips, two stick clicks and Menu. There is no d-pad, no touchpad and no Select, so a mapping that leans on the d-pad has nothing to press it. Shift layers are how you get more out of eleven buttons; see Remapping.

The Meta button on the right controller is drawn on the model but can never be bound. Your headset keeps it for its own menu and no application ever sees it.

Rebinding from the model

The Meta Quest page shows the pair as a live 3D model that lights up as you press things. Click any control on it to change what that control does, without leaving the page. It is the quick path rather than a second remapper: turbo, layers and timings stay on Remapping, which the pair reaches like any other pad.

Vibration

Game rumble is sent back to both controllers. The Haptics page has a vibration test if you want to confirm it before you play.

Troubleshooting

Nothing at all, and the page says no runtime. Meta's desktop app is not installed, not running, or not signed in. The Signal path names which link is dead.

The page looks connected but nothing happens in the game. Check the output under How it works in your game, and check whether another controller is holding the active slot. The setup card shows a Use the Quest button whenever that is the case.

Controls stop after a moment on the desk. The controllers sleep when they are still. Press a button on each to wake them.

Aiming goes the wrong way. Use the invert switches, or the pointing-direction dropdown if it is rotated rather than reversed.

Meta's own menu keeps reacting to your presses. Expected on the default setting. See the section above.