quest-2-silicone-cover — Image courtesy Meta

Quest 2 Facepad Recalled Over Skin Irritation, Sales to Resume with 128GB Model & Silicone Facepad Cover

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Jul 27, 2021

Facebook announced today that it has paused the sale of Quest 2 globally while it works to include a silicone facepad cover with the headset going forward. The move was prompted by what the company says was a “very small percentage” of customers who reported skin irritation from the headset’s foam facepad. When Quest 2 goes back on sale in late August, the company will also introduce a 128GB model, replacing the current 64GB model at the same price.

Facebook is pausing the sale of all Quest 2 models while it works to address an issue relating to skin irritation from the headset’s foam facepad. In the US and Canada, the company says it has voluntarily initiated a recall of the facepad, which allows customers to claim a free silicone cover which fits over the foam (see the support page for details).

The silicone cover for Quest 2 | Image courtesy Oculus

The company maintains that it impacts a “very small percentage” of customers. The recall page says there have been 5,716 reports of skin irritation, 45 of which required medical attention. That’s against some 4.2 million facepads that have shipped in the US and Canada. Facebook says its investigation revealed no issues in its manufacturing process, and claims that the irritation is non-allergic, and common among a small percentage of people across a wide range of products. According to the company, the issue does not impact other Oculus headsets like the original Quest or Rift S.

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Going forward, Facebook says that all Quest 2 packages will include the silicone cover which can be optionally fit over the default foam facepad.

The company has dealt with skin irritation issue before, and has previously offered facepad covers. This time around, it seems like Facebook is going further to try to put an end to any further sales disruptions by including the silicone cover in the box itself.

Facebook is also using this opportunity to introduce a new Quest 2 model with 128GB of storage. This model will launch on August 24th and will replace the current 64GB model at the same $300 price point.

Christian Schildwaechter

It seem like the “free silicone facepad cover” isn’t limited to the US and Canada. Once you have followed the link on the support page to “My Devices”, you can order one to any country that the Quest 2 is sold in. I’m not completely sure, as I couldn’t finish the process, because Facebook still doesn’t sell in Germany. And while my Quest 2 is from France, I don’t actually live there, and you have to select the country from a predefined list.
- benz145
  
  Yeah it should be available to anyone.
BCC Dude

Wait didn’t this occur already several months ago?
I even asked to have mine “exchanged” (technically, they sent 3rd party pad to me for free) despite not having irradiations myself.

Or is this just a reminder of some sort?
- BCC Dude
  
  Replying to myself.
  Roughly 5 mins after my previous post I got email from FB tellinge to redeem new new pad. So I suppose the previous 3rd party one was a short term solution and this is final.
  
  Sweet this means I get one more facial cover for free, lol. I hope this new one can accommodate the glass spacer for my friends who need it.
  - Chirpes
    
    I suspect it was to help judge how many units were affected and if a recall was necessary. Also if they tell the CPSC that they are offering replacement covers already it would help prevent them from being asked to do a “voluntary recall” by the CPSC. (A “mandatory recall” opens them up to lawsuits)
    
    So the idea of offering VRCovers was probably a money saving venture. Since you had to go to the support page to know about the offer, but still gave the illusion they were doing something big to the CPSC.
- Chirpes
  
  I suspect it was to help judge how many units were affected and if a recall was necessary. Also if they tell the CPSC that they are offering replacement covers already it would help prevent them from being asked to do a “voluntary recall” by the CPSC. (A “mandatory recall” opens them up to lawsuits)
  
  So the idea of offering VRCovers was probably a money saving venture. Since you had to go to the support page to know about the offer, but still gave the illusion they were doing something big to the CPSC
TonyVT SkarredGhost

4.2M of sold facemask is a number we can use to estimate the number of Quests sold?
- Christian Schildwaechter
  
  It is very difficult, as these numbers are only for the US and Canada. I tried to compare them with international Steam user numbers. The latest I found were from 2018, with 14.43% of all Steam users being from the US. A naive (and incorrect) projection of 4M US facepads would mean 27.7M Quest 2 worldwide.
  
  But from the recall we know that only 172,600 facepads were sold in Canada, which had 3.11% user share on Steam in 2018. Doing the same projection, we end up with 5.5M Quest2 worldwide. A bracket from 5.5M to 27.7M is rather large, and unfortunately the whole projection crumbles even further, because the Quest isn’t actually sold worldwide, e.g. not in China or Germany, and these two combined have more Steam users than the US.
  
  There are other minor effects like the number of facepads sold being larger than the number of Quest 2 sold. All in all we sort of have a lower end estimate now (at least 4.2M Quest 2 were sold), but deriving how many were sold in total is almost impossible, as we do not now how they are regionally distributed. We can assume that the US share is above average, so it is pretty safe to say that less than 28M were sold, but that isn’t all that useful.
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oomph2

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Andrew Jakobs

I guess they used a different material foam with all their previous headsets. But I guess a lot of people already ordered different replacements from other sources, for different reasons. I wonder why they hadn’t already replaced the foam as this problem was already known in december last year, only a few weeks or so after initial release.
JB1968

That plastic must contain some serious poisonous shit. Facebook has to be pretty scared (and probably pissed because of the recall costs) as CPSC would otherwise stopped Quest sales completely.
One more reason to not buy anything from this company.
Chirpes

My 64GB one had issues with the charging port since day 1; Support said it was a covered issue and I could send it in whenever I wanted to. I decided to wait since it wasn’t a drastic issue.

Now’s my time to send it in! They’ve told me they’ll send a replacement once they go back on sale. (128GB, rather than 64GB)