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:
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—the 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.