I drove a remote-controlled car with MetaQuest 3 — and it’s the closest thing I’ll ever see to NASCAR

The Meta Quest 3 headset is great for immersing yourself in virtual worlds—it’s my favorite way to use games like Microsoft Flight Simulator—but what many people don’t know is that it’s also great for augmented reality.

I got a chance to try out the remote-controlled car Real Racer, which recently released an app that lets you control it with Meta Quest 3. It takes both the best VR headset and the car to the next level, creating a pretty awesome AR experience. Here’s how it works and what I discovered.

Real Racer from Meta Quest 3 – YouTube
Real Racer from Meta Quest 3 - YouTube

Be careful

The Real Racer car works well on its own and is a pretty cool toy for $150. The car has a 720p camera just above the windshield that transmits images over Wi-Fi to an app on your smartphone. The car also comes with a headset so you can mount your phone inside and get a first-person view as it whizzes across the floor.

The car also comes with a remote control with a simple trigger to move it forward and backward and a wheel on the side to turn the car. Unfortunately, the set does not include the four AAA batteries you need to power the remote, and the steering wheel came off very easily.

However, when I combined the car with Meta Quest 3, everything reached a whole new level.

In the driver’s seat

Camera view of a real racing driver

My cat was delighted with the Real Racer car. (Photo source: Future)

Once everything was ready, I was (figuratively) behind the wheel. MetaQuest 3 had changed so that it now looked like I was sitting in a race car: looking out the windshield, I saw a live feed from the car’s camera. Directly in front of me was the steering wheel and dashboard, and the rest of the cockpit looked like a production car—if I looked down, I could even see the seat.

Instead of the controller that came with the race car, I used the Meta Quest 3 controllers. Pressing the two Pinch buttons (the farthest ones on the controllers) would cause my virtual hands to grip the steering wheel. I could then turn my hands left or right to steer the car, just like in real life.

Pressing the right trigger caused the car to drive forward, while pressing the left trigger caused the car to drive backward.

Driving with the headset on was pretty cool—I was chasing my cat around the house in no time. I do wish the haptic feedback in the controllers would rumble as the car roared around my house, though.

The video quality was only so-so. Things degraded pretty quickly in darker conditions, but you can’t expect 4K from something that only costs $150, and for a toy it’s pretty good.

Bumps in the road

To use the car with the Meta Quest 3, you’ll need to install the app on the headset, then pair the car with the headset over Wi-Fi. The setup process was a bit awkward—the app froze on me a few times, and in a few cases, I had to exit the app to select certain menu items.

Aside from the app glitches, the only thing I found really annoying was the battery in the car itself. The battery lasts about 20 minutes, but to charge it, you have to unscrew a panel on the bottom of the car, remove the battery, and plug it into a proprietary USB-A socket. The car comes with a tiny screwdriver, like the kind you might find in an eyeglass repair kit, and one you’re bound to lose. So be sure to put it somewhere safe.

Ride or die?

Real Racer is a fun and fairly inexpensive way to get more out of your Meta Quest 3 headset. I can imagine kids will have a lot of fun with it, especially since you can drive the car out of sight but still see where it’s going. The battery life is also pretty long — some cheap drones last less than half that — so it’s nice to get a bit of car play in before you have to head back to the garage.