Facebook’s own Oculus Quest 2 – one of the leading headsets in the world of virtual reality – has seen gigantic sales this year. Facebook reports that this particular model has “surpassed not just its predecessor, all of its predecessors combined” in 2021. However, that number is on the verge of collapsing as all Oculus Quest 2 sales have been suspended for a few weeks due to safety concerns.
Only 0.01% of customers reportedly experienced such irritation, with even these cases being very mild for the vast majority. However, a few of them have been reported as quite serious, and because of this, Facebook has decided to withdraw the entire product and prevent further cases and possibly a lawsuit in the future.
However, this did not come out of the blue. The Oculus Quest 2 VR headset has been in stores since last October, and people have been speaking out and posting pictures of their flushed skin on social media like Reddit and Facebook for a very long time.
In April, Facebook suddenly addressed the issue, claiming it had investigated the matter and found no real concerns:
“After a thorough investigation of this problem, we did not find any impurities or unexpected substances in our manufacturing process. We have identified some trace substances that are normally present in the manufacturing process that can contribute to skin discomfort, and although these were already below industry standards, we carefully modified our process to reduce them even further. We have confirmed with experienced dermatologists and toxicologists that these values are considered extremely low. Although this issue has only been reported by a very small percentage of Quest 2 users, we believe that with these changes, users will experience even less irritation from substances in the foam face surface with these changes. We recommend any customer who experiences irritation while using Quest 2 to contact Oculus Support for a replacement for the facial interface. “
Somehow that announcement didn’t fix the real problem (surprise, surprise!) And many users continued to experience the blistering that the chemical used in the foam appeared to be causing. Finally, a few days ago, Facebook apparently finally decided to face the problem and fix it once and for all for users.
The company has ceased sales of the Oculus Quest 2 on a global basis and the lockdown will last a full month – and will continue on August 24th – while Facebook is outfitting every single Quest 2 box around the world with a protective silicone case that covers over the problematic foam (which, by the way, is also removable).
Today we are introducing a new silicone case for all customers worldwide, among other things as part of a joint voluntary recall of the removable Quest 2 foam face interface with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Health Canada. In addition, we have been communicating with global regulators and are taking the additional step of temporarily suspending Quest 2 sales worldwide while we work on adding the new silicone covers to all Quest 2 packages. The new silicone case fits over the removable Quest 2 foam face mask and from August 24th, all Quest 2 headsets will come with a silicone case included in each box. Please visit the Oculus blog for more information.
Anyone who already owns the Oculus Quest 2 and would like to receive one of the protective silicone cases for free can simply contact the company by following these instructions published on the official site.
Comments are closed.