Oculus quest 2 cannot be used in such darkness that even a human eye can’t see because the tracking feature of your headsets won’t work in complete darkness.
Although the headset can function properly, in dimming light condition, but it will constantly lose tracking as a result you need to disable tracking (3 DoF) to keep lying down while using the VR to watch movies, Netflix or browse the web. Disabling the tracking means there’s no need for lighting in the room.
How you disable tracking:
- Go to Settings from the main menu on your Quest
- Click on “See All”
- Select the “Device” tab from the menu on the left
- Turn “Tracking off”
So, if want to continue your gaming while being in the dark, I recommend using an external source of infrared light or IR illuminators as they are quite popular among VR gamers.
How to Play games on Meta Quest 2 in the dark?
Just like the Valve Index, oculus quest 2 doesn’t come with base station to track your location across the room. So, to play games in the night, get yourself an IR emitter and put it up in a corner of your room.
I have been using my oculus quest 2 to fly my drones in the dark, so it doesn’t necessarily need to use the headset to play games all the time. Go out and fly some drones like me.
What does an IR emitter do?
IR emitter simply illuminates infrared light in the pitch dark condition to increase tracking sensitivity of your quest 2 and creates an environment to play games in full of darkness of your room.
If your room is full of light, you can play games without any issue, if the light is in dimming mode, tracking starts to glitch an lastly no light makes the headset unusable.
Where to set up IR emitter?
Behind you.
As you use the headset, it is best to aim the infrareds in the direction where you plan to face, not at you. As an example, if you’re going to use VR in your living room facing your television, you should place the infrareds behind you as well facing the television, so the television is illuminated.
How to turn on the IR emitter?
You simply plug it in, leave it plugged in, and it will always be on.
When it detects darkness, as soon as the lights are turned off, the infrareds will illuminate, but you will not actually see anything until you put on the headset.
