This is a guide to using a Meta Quest Pro in PCVR. Integrating a Quest headset with PCVR is not not as simple as a native SteamVR headset: there are some hurdles to jump through and some pitfalls to avoid.

There’s not a lot of great documentation out there on using Quest for PCVR, so I’m sharing my personal experiences switching from a Valve Index to a Meta Quest Pro primarily for use with VRChat. While this guide is written for Quest Pro, much of it should still be applicable for other Quest headsets. Anyways, why’d I switch? In a word: eye and face tracking. I’ve written more on my research into present eye and face tracking options in another post if you’re interested.

Quest Pro Accessories

The Index has a very strong experience right out of the box. Unfortunately, the Quest Pro offloads certain things to accessories not included in the box. This means that unfortunately it’s going to cost you a decent bit more than the cost of the Quest Pro alone.

Also, note that you can get the 1st-party Meta accessories from other websites, like Amazon. You might find different prices or faster shipping.

Wireless

I heavily recommend you go wireless, because losing the cable is very nice. In order to go wireless you will want either a Wifi 6 (5GHz) or preferably a Wifi 6E (6GHz) access point. While Meta sells a D-Link VR Air Bridge on their store it is only Wifi 6, requires custom software on your PC, and is not a normal access point that any device can use. Therefore I recommend you instead get a 3rd-party Wifi 6E router or access point. I personally went with a TP-Link AXE5400. Note that regardless of how they’re advertised or if they have a one-click “access point mode”, any wireless router can be used as an access point simply by disabling unneeded router features such as NAT and the DHCP server. CNET has an adequate guide on this process if you need it.

A good wireless connection is extremely important to meet the high bandwidth requirements of video streaming, so it’s recommended you have the access point with you in the room and dedicate it entirely to the Quest. Your PC should be connected to your local area network via an ethernet cable. I’m not exaggerating the high bandwidth requirements: it’s around 200-350 Mbps. (For context, a Twitch stream caps out at 6 Mbps.) This high bitrate is critical because it both reduces compression artifacting and allows the video encoder and decoder to run in a very low latency mode. With such high bitrates compression artifacting is minimal: most of the time you won’t even notice it, but in cases where there are intense particle effects you’ll perceive things becoming less crisp.

Wired

If you don’t want to go wireless for some reason, you’ll need a link cable and will need to use the Oculus software on your PC. This cable is very expensive (80 USD), as it’s quite long and fiber-optic. This is a very old method of using PCVR and hasn’t received the best support: for example you’ll have to jump through hoops to get face and eye tracking working. The link cable does not send raw video to the Quest so you’ll be dealing with video compression artifacts, although I have not tried it personally so I can’t say if they are less noticeable than with wireless. Also, unlike a wireless router a cable will wear out over time.

Audio

The Quest Pro’s stock speaker solution seems to prioritize looking really sleek, as it’s hidden away in the headband instead of the dangling speakers the Index places right over your ears. If you want something that is louder, higher quality, and blocks surrounding noise Meta sells add-on earphones.

Charging

By default all they give you is a little charging stand. This isn’t great, as the Quest Pro has ~2 hours of battery life. You’re going to want some sort of external charging solution for the USB-C port to stay in VR longer than that. Your options are either a long ass cable for wired charging or a pair of battery banks. You can keep one battery bank charging and one in your pocket to always trickle charge your Quest Pro. Note that the headset has a very high power draw compared to other USB-charged devices. The included charger is 45W, which is huge. For context, modern smartphones can handle around 20-30W maximum when charging. A 10,000 mAh battery will extend the headsets life by around 4 hours, for a total of 6 hours. In my testing I’ve found that 12W battery output is insufficient to keep the headset topped off, but it’s close. If you can find a battery that’s got a bit more wattage (maybe 16W?) you might be able to hot-swap batteries indefinitely.

Comfort

Globular Cluster sells a cushion/strap replacement (1st party / Amazon) that I can recommend as it is is very comfortable and comes with two sets of pads: one surfaced with faux leather, and one surfaced with cloth. I personally like the cloth pads, as they do a better job mitigating sweating. There’s also a top-of-head strap which I find useful for making sure the headset rests in a consistent position. There are other pad replacement and head strap options on Amazon, but they’re cheaper build quality than Globular Cluster’s product.

The Quest Pro does not have a built in face gasket like the Index, but it comes with some partial light blockers that attach to the sides of the headset. They’re essentially horse blinders. However, they leave a large gap at the bottom of the headset and it’s significantly larger than the Index nose hole you may be used to peeking out of. If you wish the Index was easier to peek out of, then you don’t need to do anything. If you like the level of light blocking the Index provides you’ll want to pick up the full light blocker. Meta alleges that this can negatively impact the face tracking, but I didn’t notice any measurable difference in face tracking quality with the full light blocker versus the partial light blockers.

PCVR Connection

SteamLink is a free application that connects your Quest to a PC on the same network. Setup is very easy:

  1. Install SteamLink on your Quest. You can get it from the Meta store.
  2. Run Steam on your PC
  3. Ensure you’re on the same LAN as your PC
  4. Start SteamLink on your Quest
  5. Follow the instructions in your Quest to complete the link

Note that some people claim Virtual Desktop delivers higher quality video encoding than SteamLink, but Virtual Desktop costs 20 USD so I have not personally tested it.

The Quest Pro supports eye and face tracking. Setup for this is going to vary from game to game. For VRChat, see VRCFaceTracking.

Base Station Compatibility

Good news: if you have base-station tracked hardware it’s possible to use it alongside your Quest Pro. Bad news: it takes a bit of setup and a bunch of 3rd party software.

Aligning Playspaces

OpenVR Space Calibrator does voodoo witchcraft to align your Oculus and base station playspaces. There are several forks of this project: the one I’ve linked is the most recently updated and supports continuous calibration via mounting a Vive tracker to your headset. This isn’t required, but it’s less annoying that periodically doing the manual calibration, which involves holding a controller solidly against your headset and wobbling your head around. If you do plan on mounting a Vive tracker, I found that this adhesive camera mount works great, and its mounting surface is even slightly concave which works quite well with the convex plastic surface on the forehead part of the Quest Pro.

Base Station Power Management

OVR Lighthouse Manager allows you to do power management on your base stations, which by default only works with Vive or Index headsets. You will need a Bluetooth LE 4.0 dongle to use this.

Skipping the Quest Controllers

You may wish to use your base station tracked controllers instead of the Quest controllers. This means the only purpose of the Quest controllers is to open Steam Link, after which they serve no purpose and just clutter up SteamVR. You have two options to open Steam Link without a Quest controller:

  1. Disable hand tracking, which will fall back to volume rocker input.
  2. Sideload a patched Steam Link apk that supports hand tracking. There are old patched builds available, but this mod is no longer being maintained.

Skipping All Controllers

The Quest’s cameras can track your hands without controllers, allowing you to interact with UI that way. It works surprisingly well and is nice if you don’t feel like picking up your controllers, but the controllers still provide much more accurate control, especially if you need precise movement or jumping. You can use this in VRChat on the native Quest application, Steam Link, or Virtual Desktop. If you’re using the Quest Pro controllers you can easily switch in and out of hand tracking with a gesture (tapping your controllers together). Unfortunately, if you’re using SteamVR controllers there is no easy gesture: you have to navigate through the Horizon OS settings to flip a toggle switch. This is extremely difficult to do, so I’ve found myself simply not using the hand tracking because toggling it is ridiculously difficult and I’d rather use my Index controllers than have the gimmicky hand tracking.

New User Experience

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Meta’s Horizon OS doesn’t seem obviously evil. The OS seems to have been built with a focus on transparency. During headset setup there are prompts asking if you want to allow data collection or not, and there were no dark patterns to prioritize the “wrong” choice. There is a permission system similar to smartphone apps to grant apps access to certain hardware features, such as camera, microphone, and more with the default permissions being very reasonable. Meta is particularly cautious surrounding the privacy of biometrics (face and hand tracking) and camera data. One of the biggest historic privacy concerns was mandatory Facebook account linking, but it’s been replaced with a Meta account instead. I deleted my Facebook account years ago, and I was pleased to learn that creating a Meta account does not require a linked Facebook account.

As for minor annoyances, Horizon OS has some default apps installed in it by default with icons that can’t be removed, which is annoying but not the end of the world as they can just be ignored. For example, there’s some sort of Meta contacts thing, some kind of live feed, and of course Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse. Also, the Quest insists on screeching at you every time you boot if there are objects in your playspace… such as a beanbag chair. If there’s some way of disabling this prompt I sure haven’t found it.