Meta Wants to Turn Any Flat Surface into a Virtual Quest Keyboard

Meta is looking at turning any flat surface into a keyboard by way of the Quest, its virtual reality headset. According to a video Mark Zuckerberg shared to his personal Instagram page, the company is testing a feature that would allow users to input text by tapping on the surface in front of them. All they’d need is the original Quest or the Quest 2.

Posted Tuesday, the video shows Zuckerberg and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth each donning a Quest 2 headset in a conference room. A TV beside them reveals their view, which includes the 2D outline of a QWERTY keyboard. Both men tap on the table in front of them, and the TV display tracks their movements, showing their hands (depicted in blue) as they input text via the 2D keyboard. “Our Reality Labs research turns any flat surface into a virtual keyboard with touch typing,” the caption says. Zuckerberg was reportedly able to achieve a typing speed of 100 words per minute (WPM) using the virtual keyboard. Bosworth came in at 119 WPM. Both speeds are far faster than the average typist, who’s capable of about 40 WPM, but the average typist might not spend quite as much time on a computer as Zuckerberg and Bosworth.

Unfortunately, Meta’s idea isn’t quite like the cool holographic computers you’ll see Tony Stark using in the exhaustingly vast Marvel cinematic universe. While Iron Man’s fictional tech projects a keyboard visual onto the surface in front of him, Meta’s concept involves keeping that visual exclusive to the user. Bystanders won’t be able to see the keyboard, but the user will, thanks to their Quest headset. 

Tony Stark's holographic keyboard certainly looks nicer than Meta's virtual keyboard concept, but maybe we're not quite there yet. Credit: Screen capture from the movie Iron Man.

This isn’t augmented reality either, though. Rather than using the headset to “cast” a keyboard onto the user’s surface of choice, Meta’s concept recreates a low-fidelity version of the user’s surroundings inside the headset and then tacks a keyboard on top of that. The project is far from making its way to the public, so this could change (if Meta ever decides to roll it out at all), but this strategy certainly seems far less impressive or convenient than actual augmented reality. 

Meta is likely testing the feature in an effort to relieve the difficulty inherent to VR text input. While Quest devices can be paired with a Bluetooth keyboard, increasing the bulk of a VR setup isn’t exactly appealing to most users. And while floating virtual keyboards might be (barely) tolerable for quick text inputs, such as login credentials, they’re exhausting to use for full sentences. In contrast, Meta’s surface-locked keyboard could help facilitate a smoother and less tiresome text input experience, thus helping the metaverse suck a little less.