The Apple Vision Pro headset has just launched today, and we already have our first drop tests. Courtesy of AppleTrack, it seems the Vision Pro glass actually holds up better than some people had initially feared.
In normal wear and tear scenarios, like bumping into a wall or cabinet while walking around your house with the headset on, the Vision Pro front glass gets scuffed but doesn’t sustain serious damage. In fact, the speaker audio pods stops working before the glass breaks. But, yes, dropping it from head height will probably shatter the front glass completely … but incredibly the unit remained mostly functional …
To simulate regular accidental damage, like when accidentally bumping into things while using passthrough around the house, AppleTrack’s Sam Kohl first knocked the Vision Pro against his room walls. The Vision Pro easily survived normal levels of force; you are more likely to hurt yourself and get a concussion before the Vision Pro glass breaks.
However, while the camera, glass and lenses were fine, the right side speaker had stopped working. It seems the connection on the side of the band internally broke apart, which meant the audio pod could no longer receive power and stopped emitting noise.
Besides that, the headset held up. It fared well, absorbing the impact from a few more drops onto carpet. A couple more drops, the speakers experienced more visible damage — the bands seem to be somewhat of a weak point. The light seal also falls off a lot; the magnetic attachment is simply not that strong.
Going to the extreme, after an eighth drop, from significant height, the Vision Pro glass finally cracked and shattered. What’s fascinating is a clean sheet of broken glass could actually be peeled away, and the main headset mostly still worked. Both the internal and outside EyeSight screens lit up and worked as normal, despite an entire piece of front cover glass no longer being there.
In fact, it almost looked like the EyeSight display was slightly less dim with that cover glass removed. You can watch the full video here:
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