{"id":740739,"date":"2026-02-04T01:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/740739\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T01:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T01:39:11","slug":"metas-quest-3-has-the-first-vr-keyboard-that-doesnt-totally-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/740739\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta’s Quest 3 Has the First VR Keyboard That Doesn’t Totally Suck"},"content":{"rendered":"

As great as VR\/XR<\/a> can be, there are a lot of things that just aren\u2019t ideal. There\u2019s the whole wearing a huge thing on your face for long periods part, or the bad battery life part, or the part where owning a headset with an OLED display<\/a> is very, very expensive. In that laundry list of gripes, though, there is one inconvenience that gets lost in the mix: typing.<\/p>\n

Typing in VR\/XR is a tedious nightmare; it doesn\u2019t matter how you\u2019re doing it, either. Using hand tracking to pluck out each individual letter is bad, and so is using a controller. Alright, hand tracking is worse, but still, neither is ideal.<\/p>\n

Overly tedious typing is just a simple fact of the XR\/VR experience for anyone who\u2019s spent enough time in a headset, which is why Meta\u2019s new beta software for the Quest 3<\/a> is making some waves. In Horizon OS v85 PTC, Meta is toying with what they\u2019re calling a Surface Keyboard. The Surface Keyboard feature is exactly what it sounds like: an XR keyboard that you can virtually pin to a surface and use to type stuff. There\u2019s also a virtual trackpad attached to the right side for using a surface as if it\u2019s touch-sensitive.<\/p>\n

\"Surface\u00a9 James Pero \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

Naturally, as someone who hates typing in XR, I gave the feature a try, and let me tell you\u2014Meta might\u2019ve actually cracked the code here.<\/p>\n

To try the Surface Keyboard, you have to download the newest beta software and enable the feature in the experimental section of the Horizon OS settings. Once it\u2019s on, the feature is really simple to use. The Surface Keyboard leverages the external cameras on the Quest 3 to create a virtual keyboard on a flat surface, and all you have to do to summon the keyboard (once it\u2019s activated) is place your hands on the surface of your choice.<\/p>\n

Having used the previous method of typing (painstakingly poking an XR keyboard, as though I\u2019ve never used a keyboard in my life) and the Surface Keyboard back-to-back, the experience couldn\u2019t be more disparate. I can actually use two hands to type stuff out on the Surface Keyboard like God intended, which makes the process of typing faster but also a lot more accurate. Don\u2019t get me wrong, it\u2019s nowhere near the words per minute that I\u2019m getting on a real, physical keyboard<\/a>, but it\u2019s the closest thing to simulating the experience in XR that I\u2019ve used yet. It doesn\u2019t make me want to throw my headset in the nearest body of water, at the very least.<\/p>\n

\"TypingI never want to see this regular keyboard again. \u00a9 James Pero \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

Better typing might not sound like a mind-blowing addition, but the experience is night and day compared to other XR keyboards. Yes, it still requires a surface, which is slightly less convenient than just being able to summon a keyboard anywhere at any time, but if you need to do critical stuff like typing in a Wi-Fi password or searching something on the web, it\u2019s well worth taking a second to move to a desk or a table where you can lay your hands flat.<\/p>\n

There is one dim spot, though. As great as the Surface Keyboard is, the trackpad could definitely use some work. It registers my inputs correctly sometimes\u2014about 40% of the time, maybe\u2014but the rest of the time it overshoots or undershoots swipes or fails to register taps. Let\u2019s just say there\u2019s significant room for improvement here, which is fair since these are experimental features, after all.<\/p>\n

Whether the Surface Keyboard will make its way to the next official version of Horizon OS is anyone\u2019s guess, but given how useful and well-tuned the feature is already, I\u2019d be surprised if it didn\u2019t. Meta might be in a bad place with VR right now<\/a>, but if I\u2019m being honest, its keyboard is better than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As great as VR\/XR can be, there are a lot of things that just aren\u2019t ideal. There\u2019s the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":740740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3162],"tags":[24524,598,19234,53,16,15,3243,3244],"class_list":{"0":"post-740739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-hands-on","9":"tag-meta","10":"tag-meta-quest-3","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-virtual-reality","15":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116009812905967065","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=740739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=740739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=740739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=740739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}