If you've bought a Meta Quest 3 and are thinking of buying the Elite Strap with Battery, you can't – at least for the time being. Meta has paused sales of the accessory while it investigates issues with device charging.
The Elite Strap add-on offers a more ergonomic fit that's easier to adjust, and it's also available with a battery pack for longer gaming sessions between charges. It's that latter version that's been pulled, as Road to VR reports.
This hasn't come out of nowhere, either. Complaints of reliability issues have been rumbling for weeks, with users reporting that after an initial period during which everything is fine, the strap suddenly stops charging the Meta Quest 3 completely.
Meta has confirmed to Road to VR that it's manufacturing a new version of the Elite Strap with Battery that won't have this fault. Sadly, this has happened before – there were issues with the accessory straps for the Meta Quest 2 as well.
What you can do
As for what you can do as a Meta Quest 3 owner, clearly not buying an Elite Strap with Battery is a good start. Meta won't sell you one right now, but these straps still seem to be available from third-party retailers at the time of writing.
If you've already got one that's faulty, you can try returning it to Meta for a replacement, though Meta admits that this "may not necessarily resolve the problem". It seems to be a bit hit and miss as to whether you're going to end up with a working unit.
It's not a great look for an accessory that costs $130 / £130 / AU$220, although Meta does at least now seem to be working on the problem. In our Meta Quest 3 review, we were hugely impressed with the headset itself, so it's a shame that accessories are letting it down.
Apparently there's an issue with the firmware on certain units, so hopefully new and improved versions of the strap should be out soon. Meta hasn't put a timescale on it, but it told Road to VR that these would be available "as soon as possible".
