Meta Quest 3 Is a Virtual Reality of Repair Insanity (theregister.com) 22
While the tech in virtual reality headsets has "undoubtedly gotten better," iFixit says "repair is getting left off of designers' priority lists." In a recent teardown video, the DIY repair site disassembled Meta's Quest 3 headset to find that it's not super repairable," giving it a repairability score of 4 out of 10 due the absence of manuals, OEM spare parts, and "any sign of repairability considerations whatsoever." The Register reports: As the iFixit team tore into the headset, the first major failure from a repairability perspective was the "extremely complicated procedure of replacing the lithium polymer battery pack." "Replacing the battery in the Quest 3 is as difficult as it was in the Quest 2, and far more difficult than the Quest Pro." That said, the batteries in the controllers are AAs rather than the lithium-ion cells of the Quest Pro, so it's a win there.
Faced with a multitude of screws and the lack of a service manual, iFixit stripped the headset back to its bare components, revealing the new time of flight sensor -- essential for hand and controller tracking as well as mapping out the space around the user -- and, beyond the fan, the mainboard. The Quest 3 is powered by a Snapdragon 8, the XR2 Gen2. According to iFixit: "Leaked benchmarks suggest that this newer SoC improves on the XR2+ found in the Quest Pro both in terms of performance and power efficiency."
However, it is the battery that disappoints. Although it is a standard unit so theoretically replaceable, iFixit noted: "It's taken me three Fixmats, a single tray of plastic, and very careful organizing of about 50 screws to get this far." Yikes. Not really a user-serviceable part at all. [...] Overall, the team gave the device a provisional 4 out of 10 in its teardown, principally due to the absence of manuals, OEM spare parts, and "any sign of repairability considerations whatsoever." But hey, at least you can swap out the AAs in the controllers when they die.
Faced with a multitude of screws and the lack of a service manual, iFixit stripped the headset back to its bare components, revealing the new time of flight sensor -- essential for hand and controller tracking as well as mapping out the space around the user -- and, beyond the fan, the mainboard. The Quest 3 is powered by a Snapdragon 8, the XR2 Gen2. According to iFixit: "Leaked benchmarks suggest that this newer SoC improves on the XR2+ found in the Quest Pro both in terms of performance and power efficiency."
However, it is the battery that disappoints. Although it is a standard unit so theoretically replaceable, iFixit noted: "It's taken me three Fixmats, a single tray of plastic, and very careful organizing of about 50 screws to get this far." Yikes. Not really a user-serviceable part at all. [...] Overall, the team gave the device a provisional 4 out of 10 in its teardown, principally due to the absence of manuals, OEM spare parts, and "any sign of repairability considerations whatsoever." But hey, at least you can swap out the AAs in the controllers when they die.
"Move fast and (Score:1)
...make things stay broken."
Repair is not overlookeded (Score:2)
"repair is getting left off of designers' priority lists."
That's a nice euphemism to say the product has been specifically designed to be unrepairable. Many manufacturers such as Apple or John Deere go out of their way to make repair as difficult as possible, if not impossible.
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Anyway, I'd say nothing to see there in Meta's and others VRs, I simply ignore it. Tech companies, especially the ones like Meta are desperate and they don't know what to invent next to make a fortune. We already have everything we need, wake me up when there is an affordable Star Trek like holodeck available for a reasonable price.
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Anyway, I'd say nothing to see there in Meta's and others VRs, I simply ignore it. Tech companies, especially the ones like Meta are desperate and they don't know what to invent next to make a fortune. We already have everything we need, wake me up when there is an affordable Star Trek like holodeck available for a reasonable price.
We're not going to get from phones to holodecks in one step.
If you want to miss all the intermediate steps and find yourself in a place with have you no idea about how to use anything, go ahead.
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Using holodecks is simple and no further training seems required from what I have seen on TV.
Re: Repair is not overlookeded (Score:2)
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There's plenty left to be done in terms of VR. First, make the damn thing lighter and more portable. It's still a clunky bit of crap. Second, any kind of tactile feedback would be very much appreciated. When you touch something, you should feel that you're touching something. Graphics could also use some improvement, we're still at a level of one or two decades ago, even with the current generation. Yes, we have photorealism on our screens today but we're still far from that when it comes to VR and especial
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In case you did not know there a lot of managers who would have got bonuses for coming up with that crap, creating and securing the repair profit stream. I am not for that but in some cases the cost of repair is above the cost of replacement realistically unless you have the volumes to have dedicated people repairing stuff. Not sure what the mark up on John Deere is but
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That's a nice euphemism to say the product has been specifically designed to be unrepairable.
You have no idea what you're talking about. Meta doesn't make money (or expect to make money) from the hardware, which is sold at cost or even subsidized, and they very much prefer that you can fix it and continue to use it instead of throwing it out when it breaks.
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They don't. Anyone who could fix it would also quickly figure out how to kick them out of it. And yes, they sell it at below cost, because the data they want to siphon from it should compensate for that. They can't do that if you manage to kick their data stealing parts out.
You're not supposed to tinker with it, because the first thing anyone would put on YouTube is what you have to change to actually own the product you paid for.
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That's a nice euphemism to say the product has been specifically designed to be unrepairable.
I watched that video, and saying it's unrepairable is a gross overstatement (assuming manuals and repair parts will become available). The iFixit guy stripped the entire Quest 3 down to its component parts, and (if I remember correctly) only broke one clip. He broke that clip more from inexperience with the Quest 3 than for any other reason.
While getting to the battery requires a lot of steps (mostly the ton of screws), it's doable with only a few common tools. Even the screws are all the same type of Torx
Codesigners (Score:2)
John Deere and Apple were probably part of the design team's advisory board.
Oddly High Rating (Score:2)
If that's a 4/10, then what on earth is a 1/10?
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1/10 is reserved for products the iFixIt team break when opening. Like the Surface Pro 3 which they couldn't get apart without ruining a perfectly functioning screen.
Repair it? As in, let the user tinker with it? (Score:2)
No way. The threat that they'd somehow manage to kick the metastasis of a cancer out of it is way, way too high. Why do you think that thing costs a fraction of the competing Steam product? Because they're so much better at manufacturing and cost cutting?
That's screwey (Score:1)
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50 fasteners in something that small seems kinda strange, as does the score 4 of 10 ??
It has screws. It could be a homogenous blob of glue. 4/10 seems pretty okay given the general iFixIt scores that are coming out today.
Sigh (Score:3)
The more expensive something is, the more it's likely to get thrown about, and the more it has a battery that's essential to use, the more I expect it to be repairable.
It's why I didn't get into both the 4G and 5G eras until I found a phone I liked that has replaceable batteries (alongside all the other concerns about features I wanted).
I get VR headsets being more complex, smaller, more compact, etc. but there's no reason not to just put a screw-opening door flap near the battery, and putting the battery on a basic connector.
But even modern laptops, even the Steam Deck, just don't do this, and it annoys me.
Sure, those batteries last quite a while now, but when they die pretty much the product dies because of the weird shapes of batteries, the hassle of getting to them without disturbing everything else in a sensitive piece of electronics, etc.
I found a really cheap lens for my 15+ years old digital SLR the other day and realised that I probably haven't used it in 5 years. Yet it has a standard, easy-to-find, Li-ion battery. It turned on and worked long enough to do what I needed, but if it didn't, it's really easy to just get a brand-new battery.
Would I go out and buy another new Canon SLR if I wouldn't be able to change that battery? No, it would just make me steer clear of them in the future. Nobody wins. Would I buy the official Canon battery by preference? Yes.
Hell, some product brands literally use it as a USP. My garden strimmer, jet-washer, drill, impact driver, jigsaw and reciprocating saw ALL use the same damn standard battery. It's one of the main reasons that I use that brand. And when I want to buy a new tool, the first thing I do is see if they do one and - if so - I will even accept some small concessions in features to use theirs rather than another brand.
If you can't be bothered to expose the battery, or sell it yourself, at least use a standard sizing so people can make clones.
This title makes no sense (Score:2)
I'm sure someone thought it was a clever play on words.
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Futures made of virtual insanity.