Although the whole basis of the LEGO® brick is the endless creativity it holds, for many sets, instructions are an important aspect of the build process. LEGO instructions have evolved over the years. The early instructions weren’t very user-friendly as I found when I rediscovered some of the sets from my childhood. Modern-day instructions are far better to navigate, well, apart from that short period where 18+ sets featured black backgrounds. However, you may have noticed in the lifestyle images for many of the sets aimed at younger builders, the traditional paper instructions are increasingly being replaced by a smart device and the LEGO Builder app. This has been available for a few years now and offers access to digital versions of instructions for all new sets. Whilst digital instructions are useful, especially for the ability to rotate them in 3D, the process is far slower, painfully so when building the Mario sets.
But a recent advert for the Meta Quest presents a possible future route for LEGO building – Augmented Reality Building. AR is increasingly becoming easier to access, through smart devices and VR headsets. One such headset is the Meta Quest 3, in that recent TV advert for the device, a man is building a cot and uses the Meta Quest to overlay instructions and videos as he builds. A similar function is available for the super-expensive Apple Vision Pro. So I thought I’d see if I could replicate it when building a LEGO set.
Now it’s not as easy as popping on the Meta Quest and get building. There is a little work to do beforehand. Firstly, you’ll need the PDF version of a set’s instructions. These can easily be found on LEGO.com or by visiting the product page of a set. On another device such as a laptop or smart device, download the instructions and add them to Google Drive or a similar application.
On your Meta Quest, you can then access this via the device’s browser. The latest update for Meta Quest 3, adds better passthrough and multiple screens. So for my test, I had three virtual screens open including the instructions on Google Drive and Disney+. You can choose to control Meta Quest with hand tracking. Although this works well enough, it can cause the virtual screens to jump around a little. If you are using hand gesture control, you can simply pinch your fingers together to scroll the screen. Alternatively, you can use the Quest controller.
I certainly prefer paper instructions over the sluggish Builder App but I found building in AR quite enjoyable. Having a film playing or some music playing at the same time added to the experience. A dedicated VR LEGO app would be great and a nice option to have.
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