Facebook halt Oculus Quest 2 sales because it was causing skin irritation
They're offering a free faceplate cover as a fix
Facebook have halted sales of the Oculus Quest 2 after a small number of users reported skin irritation caused by its foam faceplate. They're offering a silicone cover for the faceplate to all existing Quest 2 owners, and the silicone cover will be included with every Quest 2 when sales resume on August 24th.
The issue was originally reported via the Oculus blog last year, where the headset manufacturer described it as affecting "about 0.01% of people using Quest 2." They compared it to skin irritation common with other headgear such as ski goggles.
Since then, Facebook say they've confirmed it's not an allergic reaction, but the replacement cover is being offered "as part of a joint voluntary recall of the Quest 2 removable foam facial interface with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and Health Canada."
"In addition, we’ve been communicating with global regulators and are taking the extra step of temporarily pausing sales of Quest 2 globally while we work to include the new silicone covers in all Quest 2 packages. The new silicone cover fits over the Quest 2 removable foam facial interface and starting on August 24, all Quest 2 headsets will come with a silicone cover included in every box," reads the post.
If you're a Quest 2 owner and have experienced no skin irritation or other issues, there's no reason for alarm and you can likely continue using the headset as normal. If you experience irritation of any kind, you should stop immediately. In either case, you should head to this post on the Oculus site to request your free Silicone cover.
Facebook were already preparing to launch a new version of the Oculus Quest 2 on August 24th, which will include 128GB of storage instead of the original 64GB.
The Quest, if you aren't aware, is a VR headset that doesn't need to be hooked up to an external PC to play. That means you can play VR games on it without being encumbered by cables. It's priced as an entry-level device, at £299/$299. In her Oculus Quest 2 review, Katharine said it was "a great introduction to VR, and almost certainly the headset most people should buy going forward."
