Meta Issues Voluntary Recall of Early Quest 3 Elite Battery Straps Due to Charging Fault

A widespread charging fault with Meta’s $130 Elite Battery Strap for Quest 3 forced the company to pause shipments back in December and start replacing units on a case-by-case basis. Now, it seems Meta has zeroed in on just which units could potentially be defective, and issuing what it calls “voluntary replacements”—but only if they contact you first.

Meta sent out an email recently to contact customers of its Elite Strap with Battery for Quest 3. Here’s one such email, courtesy X user @ezreeszy:

Image courtesy @ezreeszy

The charging fault, which rendered the battery useless for some users, was due to an issue with the device’s firmware, which notably couldn’t be fixed with an update and required complete replacement.

In response to widespread reports of the battery fault, Meta paused shipments of Elite Strap with Battery for Quest 3 late last year, and began shipping units with updated firmware from both Meta and its partner retailers starting sometime in mid-December. If you purchased your Elite Strap with Battery for Quest 3 after then, it’s unlikely you’ll receive such an email.

While Meta isn’t calling it a “recall” as such—to company isn’t requiring affected customers to actually send back either faulty, or potentially faulty units—it is suggesting you “follow the instructions marked on the product to responsibly dispose of it and not do it via general trash,” a follow-up email reads. So basically, keep it or bin it at your discretion.

This is only another chapter in the manufacturing woes of Meta’s Elite Strap line. Released for Quest 2 in 2020, both the Elite Strap and Elite Strap with Battery suffered premature breakage due to design issues that caused the device’s plastic struts to spontaneously crack. Meta extended the warranty of both Elite Strap variants once it unpaused sales in late 2020, or around two months after the company initially halted shipments of faulty units.

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Meta Reportedly Set to Unveil Prototype AR Glasses ‘Orion’ at Connect 2024

Along its quest to own a sizeable chunk of the XR space, Meta may be getting ready to show off some of its prototype AR hardware at the company’s upcoming Connect developer conference later this year, which up until now has been tightly under wraps.

A report from Business Insider maintains Meta’s AR team has been tapped to get its ‘Orion’ AR glasses ready to unveil at Connect 2024, which typically happens in October. The report cites two people familiar with the matter, whose identities were confirmed by Business Insider.

Orion has been under development for the past nine years, however there is allegedly now “internal pressure to ensure a high level of performance” at Connect, which the company regularly uses to not only unveil new products, such as Quest 3, but also research projects and prototypes such as Project Aria, which when unveiled in 2020 showed off a bevy of sensors the company was using to train its AR perception systems and assess public perception of the technology.

Project Aria | Image courtesy Meta

It’s uncertain if Orion and Project Nazare, are one in the same, which Meta teased back in 2021, saying it would be the company’s “first full augmented reality glasses.” Back then, Meta CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg outlined just how difficult it would be:

“There’s a lot of technical work to get this form-factor and experience right. We have to fit hologram displays, projectors, batteries, radios, custom silicon chips, cameras, speakers, sensors to map the world around you and more into glasses that are about 5mm thick. So we still have a ways to go with Nazare, but we’re making good progress,” Zuckerberg said.

Speaking to The Verge late last year, Meta CTO and Reality Labs Chief Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth described the company’s AR glasses as having been built on a “prohibitively expensive technology path.”

Notably, these are set to be ‘true’ AR glasses, and not HUD-based smartglasses like Google Glass, or a mixed reality headset, such as the company’s Quest line. Find out more about the difference between AR and smartglasses in our handy primer.

According to Business Insider, it’s expected that a consumer version of the AR glasses won’t be ready for a number of years, as previous reports maintain it could come as soon as 2027.

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Meta Reportedly Rejected Google Partnership to Bring Android XR to Quest

According to a report from The Information, Google and Meta held a meeting late last year wherein the two companies discussed the possibility of bringing Android XR to Meta headsets. While it’s said Meta rejected the partnership, which would potentially allow Quest headsets to run standard Android apps, Google is allegedly still open to the idea.

Quest already runs an open-source version of Android, although Meta’s headsets don’t have the sort of access to standard Android apps built for mobile devices like Apple Vision Pro does with content developed for iPhone, which boasts over 1.5 million iOS apps in addition to over 1,000 native Vision Pro native apps.

Such a deal would make Meta more competitive with Apple in the near-term by allowing users wider access to Android apps not built for XR, however it would require the company to give up a good deal of control over its platform.

The Information maintains a such a partnership may stop Meta from “own[ing] the next computational platform for AR, VR and mixed reality,” which would also involve Meta contributing to the development of Android XR instead of more directly controlling its platform like it does today.

And as with all things Android, Google has has more than just a potential Meta partnership in mind, as it’s expected the company wants Android XR to fill the same role for XR headsets as its mobile operating system does for smartphones. It needs external hardware partners to do this though, since the company has shuttered a number of recent XR hardware projects in addition to entirely giving up on Google Daydream platform in 2019.

To boot, Samsung announced early last year it was working with Qualcomm and Google on its own headset, which means we can expect some form of Android XR there first. Additionally, it was reported last summer that South Korean tech giant delayed the still unnamed XR headset to make it more competitive with Vision Pro.

Meanwhile, Meta has partnered with LG to ostensibly manufacture the next wave of Quest headsets, which reportedly could be both a high-end Quest Pro 2 as well as a cheaper headset.

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Meta and LG Confirm Partnership to “Accelerate XR Business” in Wake of Vision Pro Launch

LG announced a collaboration with Meta focused on strengthening the XR business of both companies.

Following the release of Vision Pro, it has become apparent that Apple has a serious game plan for its XR line of devices. Now that their product and focus is out in the open, the market is beginning to respond.

Today LG formally announced a partnership with Meta, which the two companies hope will “expedite [their] XR” ventures.

According to the announcement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg met at LG’s Seoul headquarters with top executives, including William Cho, CEO and Park Hyoung-sei, President of the company’s Home Entertainment division. The two-hour conversation apparently saw LG executives trying Meta’s latest XR hardware, Quest 3 and Ray Ban smart glasses.

As for the conclusion of the meeting and newly announced partnership, “LG envisions that by bringing together Meta’s platform with its own content/service capabilities from its TV business, a distinctive ecosystem can be forged in the XR domain, which is one of the company’s new business areas,” the announcement reads. “Moreover, the fusion of Meta’s diverse core technological elements with LG’s cutting-edge product and quality capabilities promises significant synergies in next-gen XR device development.”

While it isn’t clear exactly what the two companies plan to build together, rumors suggest that a next-gen Quest Pro 2—to compete more directly with Vision Pro—could be on the docket.

As a maker of a huge array of consumer electronics, it’s expected that LG would do the heavy lifting on the manufacturing side, while Meta handles the headset’s hardware design. LG also has content and services from its significant TV business, which it could leverage to get more media content officially onto Quest headsets.

LG isn’t a stranger to the XR space, but hasn’t been particularly committed to it as a product category. Early on the company launched the LG 360 VR, a smartphone-tethered headset made for immersive media viewing. After finding little traction with customers, the product never saw a second generation.

In 2017 LG was on the cusp of launching a PC VR headset for SteamVR. It even went as far as publicly showcasing prototypes and announcing specs. But for some reason the headset never actually launched, and was left to fade into the history books without any official confirmation about what happened to the project.

According to LG, the company newly established a dedicated XR business unit within its Home Entertainment Company “to accelerate the pursuit of new ventures in the virtual space arena.”

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Vision Pro Has Apps and Quest Has Games, What Can Samsung Bring to XR to Compete?

Samsung has partnered with Google to make an XR headset, although the South Korean tech giant hasn’t tipped its hand on what to expect just yet. Despite its $3,500 sticker price, Vision Pro has shown that big and expensive is okay as long as you can engage diehard fans with compelling hardware and greater ecosystem integration. That’s a patently Apple recipe though that Samsung may not be able to easily replicate. The question is: what can Samsung bring to the table that Apple and Meta can’t? The answer may be Google, but only if it can commit.

The Meta-Apple Binary in the Making

You can’t talk about consumer XR right now without first mentioning Meta, which has undoubtedly dominated the standalone segment since the release of Quest in 2019, leaving would-be competitors to either cater to enterprise or basically stay in markets where the social media giant simply won’t (or can’t) go. That early market lead has provided the company ample time to build up an impressive content library, which has also essentially made Quest the default target platform for many XR app developers over the past four years.

Now that Apple has released Vision Pro, that landscape is set to change, although maybe not right away. At seven times the price of Quest 3, Vision Pro isn’t really a direct competitor in terms of cost-performance, but it appears Meta is gearing up anyway to deal with the future threat of successive Apple headsets.

Image courtesy Meta, Apple

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg drew some fairly clear battle lines in a recent video after trying Vision Pro himself, as he compares the two companies to computing binaries from the past. Like Windows vs. MacOS in home computers, or Android vs. iOS in mobile, Zuckerberg says he wants Quest to be the ‘open’ model in XR, while he thinks Apple will be ‘closed’, as Apple is ostensibly set to continue its walled garden approach to how it handles apps and ecosystem services on its family of devices.

Far be it from me to suggest they’re both fairly closed, although a very real binary is already here for XR enthusiasts. For now, Apple is positioning Vision Pro as a general computing device thanks to its interconnected ecosystem of iOS apps and services, while Meta is at the lower-end of the spectrum with its console-like Quest 2 and Quest 3 headsets, both of which are subsidized to encourage app sales—priced at $250 and $500 respectively.

While there’s some definite overlap in functionality, this leaves some pretty weird territory for Samsung to enter in the near term. Meta has games and Apple has its ecosystem. Samsung doesn’t really have either.

Samsung’s Balancing Act

At this point, it seems unlikely that Samsung can replicate either Apple or Meta’s specific way of doing things when it comes to releasing a standalone XR headset. Meta has invested tens of billions of dollars in XR over the years building out its console-like Quest platform, meanwhile Apple has been cooking up Vision Pro over the past decade to integrate seamlessly with its wider hardware ecosystem.

While Samsung’s headset is reportedly slated to compete with Vision Pro, we don’t precisely know what that means: Samsung could be hoping to undercut Vision Pro’s $3,500 price point with similar MR hardware, or serve up something closer to the ostensibly soon-to-be discontinued $1,000 Quest Pro, which didn’t find the footing Meta hoped for despite an excellent content library.

What we do know is the company is working with Google to provide software, and Qualcomm for its XR chip expertise. To boot, last month Qualcomm showed off a new reference MR headset made in partnership with Goertek which could point to the sort of features to expect from Samsung, as the company is using the chip-maker’s new Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 processor.

Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 reference | Image courtesy Qualcomm

The Qualcomm reference headset includes eye-tracking from Tobii, support for 4,300 × 4,300 resolution per-eye at 90Hz, 12 concurrent cameras, pancake lenses, hardware IPD adjustment, microphone array, 3.5mm headphone port, and Wi-Fi 6/6E/7. That’s not to say Samsung will include all those features, but it’s possible with Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2. Provided that carries over to Samsung hardware, it would put it somewhere north of Quest Pro in hardware features, and very likely price as well.

And we have every reason to believe Samsung will offer competent hardware too. While the Korean tech giant hasn’t created its own consumer XR platform before, in addition to being a leading display manufacturer Samsung has produced its own PC VR headsets and the smartphone-based Gear VR platform, the latter of which laid the foundation for Oculus Go and Meta Quest.

As for Google, we simply don’t know at this point how big of an involvement it will have in creating anything beyond the headset’s Android-based OS. Considering Google killed its home-grown Daydream platform in 2019, and then gutted its AR hardware team earlier this year, the company may not be in a position to lend a hand to do something as monolithic as laying the foundation for the sort of hardware-agnostic VR platform that Daydream opined to be when it launched its first (and last) standalone Daydream headset with Lenovo in 2018. Google could certify the headset to bring a massive catalogue of Android apps to Samsung’s headset by default like Apple did with its iOS apps, but then again, it might not, which could hobble Samsung’s headset and rob it of an early start as the true Android competitor to Vision Pro.

– – — – –

Here’s the cynic in me: what Samsung could do to win a steady place between Apple and Meta is probably very different from what it will do. I’m expecting the company to offer great, but expensive hardware that doesn’t really succeed at offering meaningful competition to either Meta or Apple in the near term. It’ll get Samsung’s skin in the game so the company can figure out where it fits best as the market moves, but it probably won’t co-opt Google into launching the Daydream that wasn’t.

And in the wake of Apple’s entrance, it’s likely Samsung won’t be alone in entering the standalone XR space for the first time. Valve is widely rumored to be working on its own headset, codenamed ‘Deckard’, which recently was the subject of a meme-fueled website that looked to troll VR hopefuls with the release of the very fake ‘Valve Prism’.

Will Samsung offer a compelling third option in the gulf between Meta and Apple? Or are you waiting for Valve’s next move? Let us know in the comments below!

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Zuckerberg: Quest 3 Beats Vision Pro in ‘vast majority’ of Cases in Mixed Reality

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg got a chance to try out Apple Vision Pro, which although seven times more expensive than the company’s Quest 3 mixed reality headset, is arguably its biggest competitor right now—at least in terms of mental real estate it’s taking up. Here’s what the Meta chief himself thought about Apple’s first XR headset.

In a video released on Instagram, Zuckerberg explains his recent experience with the $3,500 Vision Pro. To him, it was already a forgone conclusion that $500 Quest 3 would be the better deal, but the Meta CEO goes on to explain why he thinks it’s simply a better product overall.

“I have to say that before [trying Vision Pro], I expected that Quest [3] would be the better value for most people, since it’s really good and it’s seven times less expensive. But after using it, I don’t just think Quest is the better value, I think Quest is the better product period.” Continuing, Zuckerberg calls Quest “better for the vast majority of things that people used mixed reality for.”

To illustrate, he reveals the video (embedded below) was captured using Quest 3’s passthrough cameras, which Zuckerberg compares to the high-resolution mixed reality passthrough and “big screens, just like Vision Pro.”

Image courtesy Meta

Zuckerberg highlights Quest’s strength when it comes to playing room-scale games, social VR applications, and fitness apps, but also mentions the headset’s overall comfort, which despite custom in-store fittings, has been a sticking point for some Vision Pro users.

“Quest [3], I think, is just a lot more comfortable. We designed it to weigh 120g less [than Quest Pro], which makes a really big difference on your face. There’s no wires that get in the way when you move around,” Zuckerberg says.

The Meta CEO also points to Quest 3’s wider field-of-view (FOV), brighter screen, and lower motion blur as he perceives it. While he mentions Vision Pro’s higher resolution displays, which he calls “nice,” he was surprised at “how many tradeoffs [Apple] had to make to the quality of the device, comfort, and ergonomics, and other aspects of the display and artifacts in order to get to that.”

More shots fired: Zuckerberg underlines the lack of motion controllers on Vision Pro and what he considers ‘less accurate’ hand-tracking than that on Quest 3. What’s more, he says Vision Pro’s eye-tracking is just “nice,” essentially comparing it to Quest Pro.

If it wasn’t clear by now, Zuckerberg isn’t exactly mincing words. Although Meta may not be in direct competition price-wise with Apple right now, he isn’t shy about drawing battle lines.

“Now, look. I know that some fanboys get upset whenever anyone dares to question if Apple is going to be the leader in a new category. But the reality is that every generation of computing has an ‘open’ and a ‘closed’ model. And yeah, in mobile, Apple’s closed model won. But it’s not always that way. If you go back to the PC era, Microsoft’s open model was the winner. And in this next generation, Meta is going to be the open model, and I really want to make sure the open model wins out again.”

You can catch the full three-minute video below, reupload courtesy ‘Matt – BMFVR’.

https://twitter.com/bmfshow/status/1757548885960999001

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Meta Finally Lets Users Appeal Bans in Social VR App ‘Horizon Worlds’

Meta announced it’s finally giving Horizon Worlds users the ability to file an appeal when suspected of breaking the social VR app’s Code of Conduct.

It’s been nearly three years since Meta first released Horizon Worlds in open beta, however now the company has pushed its v149 update which includes the ability to file an appeal when restrictions are placed on their profile for suspected ‘Code of Conduct for Virtual Experiences’ violations.

The company’s virtual Code of Conduct specifies that users can’t do things like promote anything designed to deceive other users, things that are illegal, abusive or could lead to physical harm, spam others for stuff like commercial services, goods or requests, or engage in or share sexually explicit or excessively violent behavior or content in public areas.

Meta says in a blog post that users can now submit a request by going to ‘Account Status’ to view any restrictions added to your profile for Code of Conduct for Virtual Experiences violations. Now you’ll be able to submit your request via the link provided in the warning or notice of suspension email.

Additionally, Meta says it’s changing how it handles Code of Conduct breakers. Suspects will have their microphones temporarily muted, and they could also temporarily lose access to some Quest features including Chats, Groups, and Calls, in addition to general access to Worlds. Severe or continuous violations may result in your Horizon profile being disabled along with your Meta account, Meta says.

Over the last year, Meta has focused on Horizon Worlds in effort to increase user retention. Starting in summer last year, Meta introduced its initial slate of first-party content with hero shooter Super Rumble and co-op adventure Citadel. The company has since released Horizon Worlds support for flatscreen devices, including Android and web browsers.

https://youtu.be/02kCEurWkqU

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TechScape: Cybercrime, AI supremacy and the metaverse – the tech stories that will dominate 2024

From the future of X to Apple’s Vision Pro headset, we make a call on the deals, products and technologies that could define this year

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Partway through 2023, I caught up with a respected, high-ranking tech writer at another publication. We gossiped and nattered, and, a bit exasperated, empathised with each other: we were run ragged.

The last two years have raised the stakes for what tech journalists do from serving a small niche community to covering stories that have an impact on the wider world. In part, that’s due to the increasing importance of technology in our day-to-day lives. It’s also down to the characters involved and what’s at stake.

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Apple Takes on Meta in Race to Make VR Mainstream

Meta has not seen the results it has hoped for with its investments in the VR space, with an operating loss of $31 billion. However, the recent announcement of Apple’s Vision Pro last June is set to reinvigorate the marketplace.

Rolf Illenberger

“I and the entire industry was waiting for Apple for a decade,” said Rolf Illenberger, CEO of VRDirect, which provides company software solutions to build their own VR projects. Among their clients are Porsche and T-Mobile.

The Apple Vision Pro is branded by Apple as a spacial computer, which will allow users to clearly see their surroundings, and project apps as if appearing within the physical space.

Several companies are currently involved in the virtual reality and augmented reality space, including “Meta, Apple, HTC . . . [and]  Lenovo,” said Illenberger told Hypergrid Business.

Finance website Insider Monkey ranks Apple, Inc. at number one in their largest VR/AR companies, with a market cap of $2.8 trillion — though Apple doesn’t actually have an AR or VR product out yet. It ranks Meta at number six, having a market cap of $787 billion.

With Apple set to release the Vision Pro, VR is about to go mainstream, according to Illenberger.

“So I think now that Apple has joined the group of companies pushing this technology,” he continued, “it’s obvious that this is the next big thing. And it’s also obvious that these companies will, you know, continue investing billions in this technology, not only in the technology but also in the kind of adoption of this technology in the market out there.”

One major hurdle that the Apple Vision Pro will face is its price tag of $3,500, which may turn off many consumers.

“You have to see that the whole, let’s say, metaverse, technologies, VR and AR, we’re still that’s still technologies, very infant technologies,” said Illenberger on the accessibility of VR technology. “I would even argue they’re not yet in a state that it’s a mass market b2c thing at this point in time, you know, look at the look at the Apple headset and the price point, but also looking at the other available VR headsets. We’re not talking about devices that are tailored towards a mass market audience at this point in time.”

In a separate interview with Laptop, Illenberg highlighted that the initial goal of the first Vision Pro model is not to sell units but rather to create buzz for the product.

“A fair comparison might be HDTV, in say, 2006 or 2007. The motivation to announce Vision Pro now was to stimulate and nurture the ecosystem of app developers and content creators to invest in the new device, which was already happening once rumors about the device started to emerge several months ago. Hence, Vision Pro is already a great success for Apple.”

Meta Quest 3. (Image courtesy Meta.)

Meta officially launched the Meta Quest 3 during its Meta Connect event last month. Meta is also experimenting with Flamera, a VR headset that utilizes a new passthrough technology that is supposed to eliminate external feed distortion and artifacts.