Meta adds tongue tracking in an update to its OpenXR extension, letting developers bring the feature to the Quest Pro; Meta Avatars SDK hasn't yet added support
Quest Pro's face tracking now includes your tongue too. — In our review of Quest Pro last year, we pointed out how moving …
Context & Ripple Effects
Quest Pro launched with eye and face tracking as part of Meta’s higher-end mixed-reality pitch. Since then, Meta has iterated on interaction inputs through Direct Touch controls and lower-latency hand tracking, making the new OpenXR capability part of a broader effort to improve how users are represented and interact in-headset.
The update exposes tongue tracking to developers on Quest Pro, but the absence of support in Meta’s own Avatars SDK leaves the platform layer ahead of Meta’s default avatar tooling.
First-order effects
- Quest Pro developers using Meta’s OpenXR extension can add tongue movement to compatible face-tracked experiences immediately, creating a more expressive input channel.
- Developers relying on Meta Avatars SDK cannot yet carry that capability into Meta’s standardized avatars, so they must wait for SDK support or build custom avatar handling.
Second-order effects
- The split between OpenXR access and Avatars SDK support increases the value of developers with custom avatar pipelines, while making cross-app consistency harder in the near term.
- Meta’s earlier push toward upper-body tracking and estimated legs suggests developers will need to combine more tracking signals as avatar fidelity rises, increasing integration and testing work.
Third-order effects
- If Meta continues exposing increasingly granular tracking through OpenXR before its higher-level SDKs catch up, immersive-app development may divide between quick SDK implementations and more differentiated custom avatar stacks.
- The broader direction is toward avatars driven by more of a user’s real-time behavior rather than a limited set of facial expressions, though adoption will depend on software support beyond Quest Pro.
The trend: XR platforms are expanding from basic controller and hand inputs toward fuller-body, face, and expression tracking that makes real-time avatars more lifelike.