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Facebook Pauses Sales of the Oculus Quest 2 Due To Face Irritation Concerns (cnet.com) 34

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Facebook said on Tuesday that it is temporarily halting sales of the Oculus Quest 2, a month before a planned update to a new entry-level model with more onboard storage. The move comes after several reported cases of skin reactions to the headset's included foam faceplate, the social media giant confirmed. From a report: According to a Facebook post on the issue from earlier this year, the company says a small percent of Quest 2 owners have reported the issue. But some cases reported online have sometimes been bad enough to cause faces to puff up and eyes to close. Facebook changed the manufacturing process of its foam face interfaces earlier this year, but the concerns still prompted Facebook to stopped selling the Quest 2 in coordination with the US Product Safety Commission.

Facebook's adding silicone face-mask covers in future versions of the Quest 2, which will fit over the foam. Existing customers can contact Facebook for the replacement cover as well. This is happening a month before Facebook is updating the Quest 2 with more storage: a new version of the $299 Quest that goes on sale Aug. 24 will have 128GB of storage instead of 64GB. Quest 2 models will include the silicone face-cover in the box from that point onward. It's awkward timing for the move, but also looks like a chance for Facebook to replace Quest 2 stock with models that have the silicone covers.
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Facebook Pauses Sales of the Oculus Quest 2 Due To Face Irritation Concerns More

Facebook Pauses Sales of the Oculus Quest 2 Due To Face Irritation Concerns

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  • Cost Cutting (Score:3, Insightful)

    by akw0088 ( 7073305 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @11:09AM (#61625601)
    Oculus Quest has been a race to the bottom since they went mobile, I'm sure the cheapest components are being put into these things

    • With an estimated 5M Q2s sold and developer making millions, I don't think they care much what you think.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by leptons ( 891340 )
      The first Oculus Quest had the same problem. I couldn't wear it for a few weeks after purchase because the foam (and possibly glue) they used to make the thing was outgassing horribly. It gave me an instant headache when I put it on, so I couldn't wear it at all until the outgassing had diminished after a few weeks. They need to address it because it really sucks getting a brand new awesome VR headset but you can't wear it because it puts your health at risk and is also nauseating to wear.
  • It's stories like this that make me kind of sad that Nvidia 3D Vision failed. 3D glasses war a nice way of getting a depth effect without having to wear a heavy casket that latches onto your face and also makes you nauseous. Does a VR headset give a more immersive effect than 3D? Yes, but it's also much more troublesome than wearing a pair of glasses.

    You could also shoot your own photos and movies in 3D (proud owner of an LG Optimus 3D and Red Hydrogen One here, thanks ebay).
    • * gasket (obviously, damn you autocorrect)

    • 3D glasses war a nice way of getting a depth effect without having to wear a heavy casket

      I've not been paying a super amount of attention to what Apple is planning in the AR space, but I am pretty sure they will be delivering AR glasses within a few years, so we'll have another shot at tech that is more wearable.

      That said, the Quest 2 is not all that heavy and I think fairly comfortable. But I am also looking forward to really good augmented reality glasses after getting to try Microsoft's AR device for a

      • I've been using this adjustable headband:
        https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod... [amazon.com]

        I definitely recommend it.

        • That does seem nice, I bought the "elite" version of the headband strap with my Quest 2, it's been comfortable enough I've not looked at alternatives - that may be a nice cheaper alternative. I would read through the reviews first though, there seem to be some concerns...

          • The biggest pain point for me is snapping all the pieces in place. I cannot understate how difficult it is even after figuring out the method. I rarely put it back in it's case due to that.

            But it sure makes gameplay much more comfortable and holds the headset in place perfectly. (Before, I'd definitely feel the weight of the Quest 2 and it would shift just enough that I kept getting blur spots.)

            If it ever breaks, I may try out the elite version. I really didn't think that it would make the positive impa

            • I never tried the base band so don't really have a good idea of improvement over the base band, but I'd heard enough people complain about the base band that I was pretty sure I wanted the upgraded one... I agree a good band helps a lot, I was playing some games a few hours at a time and a bad band would have made that impossible I think.

    • Full immersive 3d is still a more of a Fad than something practical.

      There isn't that killer App or killer game that having 3d glasses will give you a real edge over.

      There is also the idea that something can be too immersive. Playing on a screen gives us a degree of distance from what is happening in the game vs real world. I can play a violent shoot-em-up without bringing up a sweat, because beyond the fact that I know it is only a game, my senses reaffirm that it is a game. As I can see the limits to the

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

        I'd love to be able to use VR but I'm more long-sited in one eye than the other and suspect it'd just give me headaches like 3d cinema does.

        • VR with head-tracking also makes you nauseous (for which all kinds of lame workarounds exist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]), so you are not missing much really.

        • I'd love to be able to use VR but I'm more long-sited in one eye than the other and suspect it'd just give me headaches like 3d cinema does.

          Why wouldn't you just get corrective lenses in your device? It is less than $100.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

            Because I've never heard of that even asking about long-sightedness in VR. Do VR sets other than Occulus support lenses? because I wouldn't touch Facebook equipment with a barge-pole.

            • If you need glasses for reading and distance, the optimal distance for "Oculus" lenses is usually whatever sphere strength shifts your "infinity" distance to approximately 1.5 to 2.0 meters away. If you can't measure it directly, a decent approximation is to take your 'distance' prescription, then add +0.50 to both 'spherical' components (leaving cylinder and axis unchanged).

              * Adding 0.25 shifts your 'infinity' point to approximately 4 meters away from your face

              * Adding 0.50 shifts your 'infinity' point to

        • If your eyes have radically different corrections, you might have aniseikonia. There are lens designs that can fix it.

          Aniseikonia occurs when your left and right eyes have different prescriptions. Basically, the stronger lens causes more magnification, and it becomes harder for your brain to fuse the images because the image seen by one eye ends up being larger or smaller than the other's. Simplifying a bit, the way to fix the problem is to make the weaker lens thicker, which increases its magnification whi

      • I recently switched from flying analog FPV quadcopters to DJI digital. I'm calm and confident flying but when I started using DJI I noticed I was shaking and a bit unsettled. I've managed to mostly get over that already but it was pretty wild having the mind be calm like that and the body telling me I'm in danger.
      • This is a little niche, but I've heard that large machine design can benefit from VR. You can get a better sense of maintenance access and other ergonomic features that aren't easy to evaluate from a drawing or rendering on a screen. I certainly think video games will be a core driver of this technology, especially in the consumer vein. In my experience, it's a little difficult to forget the big sarcophagus on my face and nunchuck controllers in my hand; but, many internet videos offer evidence of people

    • First off, I never saw a pair of shutter glasses that actually managed to be adequately blocking light, so there was always ghosting.

      Second, the stereoscopic effect is neat and all, but it's just so far from immersive because there's no change with your head movement and that is probably more key to things feeling substantial than the stereoscopic vision.

      VR is categorically different. One the headsets have totally distinct displays/portions of displays, so no ghosting. Simply moving your head (translation a

      • I never had any significant ghosting on Nvidia 3D Vision or Samsung and Panasonic 3D TVs. Sony TVs had tons of ghosting, but they had excellent marketing behind them with their "3D world, created by Sony" slogan, which makes you wonder how many people were dissuaded from 3D because they got a Sony. The head tracking thing never appealed to me. It's cool but not genuinely useful due to the nauseousness issues.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          My attempt was a Panasonic Viera plasma, just still too much ghosting.

          The motion sickness in generally not due to the head tracking, but due to any movement in the scene that does *not* align to head tracking. E.g. if you try to 'walk' your character without you yourself moving, this can be problematic for some people. I don't have that problem personally, but for example my wife will get sick from just having a 3d game on the TV, but doesn't get bothered by vr *unless* there's movement of the first person

          • Samsung and Alienware laptops with 3D Vision are good. Haven't seen a Panasonic to be honest, but I assumed the THX 3D certification meant something. You will find ghosting if you throw test patterns at it, but on normal content, even one meant to showcase the depth effect, it's not there.

  • Prophetic (Score:4, Funny)

    by know-nothing cunt ( 6546228 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @11:13AM (#61625631)

    All those people referring to Facebook as Facefuck were quite premonitory.

  • That's Facebook's signature feature (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday July 27, 2021 @11:35AM (#61625719)

    They're irritating. In every possible way.

  • What would cause anyone to have skin irritation at some point
    • The irritation and swelling is just the headset absorbing your brain, this is normal and the pain will subside in a few months.

  • There is always Google Cardboard:

    https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab... [duckduckgo.com]

    Unless they dropped the project (as usual)

  • There's lots of snark so far, but nobody placing the blame where it belongs - on the lack of regulation and outright lack of care for safety when it makes a buck when manufacturing and specifying these plastics. This is what you get outsourcing to China. Many other examples, like Wal-mart flip-flops that gave people the same chemical burns.

    • And is this the fault of the plastics manufacturers, or the western organisations who are overlooking these shortcomings, paying for the output, failing to perform any type of QC then putting this shit, literally in your face, anyway?

      Now go make some more posts about how evil China is, on the platform that is enabling that behaviour. I promise no one will think you're a hypocrite.

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