Irreparable lens damage due to indirect contact with glasses cleaner

[LeViKun]

I always put one pump of glasses cleaner spray on my microfiber cloth, to improve cleaning the lenses. I made sure not to directly spray it on the lenses, but instead sprayed it on the cloth. One day I used two pumps. One pump too much. Now, there are shadows and refractions around bright contours.

In the photos it can be seen especially well around the passthrough VR icon on the settings panel.

I read that cleaner would scratch the lenses. So I hoped that PolyWatch might help. To no avail. It seems as if the cleaner chemically attacked my lenses in a way that they were changed in their geometry, therefore rendering PolyWatch useless.

I am considering buying a new kit of replacement lenses. I do have an iFixit kit, so I could disassemble my Quest 2. It is far beyond warranty anyways. However it would cost me 80€, roughly 80$, a lot of money.

I wonder what your thoughts are and I am curious if you know any PolyWatch alternatives that could potentially still help.

 

 

 

 

 

[MetaQuestSupport]

Hey there, @LeViKun! Thanks so much for sharing this experience with the community! We'd love to review your warranty and see what is available to help you out. Please reach out to us over PM, where we can collect some of your account and device information securely. Please select our name to get to our profile page, or click here. Next, click "Send a Message" to privately message us! Please remember, you must be signed into the community first to send us a private message.

[MetaQuestSupport]

Hi again, @LeViKun! We're just following up to make sure you got our last message. Please reach out over PMs, and we'll be happy to review your warranty to see what is available to help out! 

[TomCgcmfc]

@LeViKun  Lesson learned mate.  Never use any cleaning fluid, especially ones that contains any alcohol and/or ammonia.  These may etch the lense surface and damage them.  Some have found a light use of polywatch can help, but not always.  You especially need to avoid polywatch with Q3 or QPro pancake lens because they have a special coating that will be damaged further.  As all meta cleaning instructions say, you should only use a clean microfiber cloth to clean your lens and headset camera covers.

I doubt it’s worthwhile to try to replace the lens yourself imho.  If I were you I’d probably try to sell my Q2 controllers and buy either a new Q2 or Q3, or maybe wait for the Q3 light that may be coming out later this year.

[LeViKun]

Yeah, you are probably right :c
I also thought about waiting so prices of older headsets might drop even further.
If I buy a new headset it definitely would be the Quest 3. I think I would enjoy the AR passthrough.
Do you own a Q3? If so, is the Q3 passthrough good enough to read a phone screen?

Thank you for helping out!

[TomCgcmfc]

Ya, I upgraded my Q2 to a Q3 7 months ago and now my Q2 is officially retired.  For good standalone and MR/pass through it’s a big improvement, and yes, now very easy to read my iPhone and even PC screen/keyboard.

[MetaQuestSupport]

Hi @LeViKun! We got your PM and we'll be right with you!