Handtracking: How Playing with Your Own Hands Affects VR Occupational Health and Safety Training

In our training, we chose virtual reality to give participants the most realistic scenarios possible. But a realistic image alone is not enough. That is why, from the very beginning, we made sure our applications support hand tracking, to make the training as realistic as possible.

Most Meta Quest headsets come with controllers, but we decided to use the potential of hand tracking and let training participants work with their own hands. Why hand tracking? Because it is a step towards an even more realistic and interactive experience in virtual reality.

Saving time during training matters. Using a controller is not obvious to everyone, and even younger people may find it difficult. So we do not require participants to learn how to use controllers: their own hands are enough. Everyone knows how to use them, without an instruction manual.

Imagine first aid training where every movement is made with your own hands, without controllers. Hand tracking lets participants perform virtual resuscitation directly with their hands, which makes the training more authentic and intense. Our first aid applications also work with all CPR manikins available on the market, so if you have a manikin, you can add it to your first aid training.

Hand tracking has a big impact on training participants. Because they use their own hands, they feel more confident and engaged in the exercises. This builds muscle memory and makes the experience feel more real, which is crucial in occupational health and safety training, where a correct response to a crisis is what matters most.

In our VR training, whether it is occupational health and safety, first aid or fire safety, we make sure every stage reflects real situations in which participants will have to act. In the real world we don’t have controllers: we only have our hands. That is why we choose hand tracking, to give participants authentic training experiences that not only teach but also prepare them for real life.

Why we chose hand tracking

• Natural interaction: hands are our natural tool for interacting with the real world, which makes hand tracking more intuitive for training participants.
• No extra devices: hand tracking removes the need for controllers, so there are fewer components to handle and fewer interruptions to the training.
• Freedom of movement: participants can move their hands freely, which allows more natural and fluid gestures and actions in the virtual environment.
• Deeper immersion: using your own hands instead of controllers draws you deeper into the virtual scenario and increases participants’ involvement.
• Precision: hand tracking follows hand movements precisely, which is important in training that requires detailed gestures and manipulation.