What just happened? There's been plenty of controversy over the $3,500 price tag that Apple slapped on its Vision Pro headset, but here's some good news for rich Cupertino fans intending to buy one: the device is a lot more durable than you'd imagine.
With the Apple Vision Pro finally going on sale two days ago, Sam Kohl from AppleTrack decided to put the wallet-punishing mixed-reality headset through a series of durability tests.
Thankfully, the danger of the Vision Pro shattering into dust the moment you walk into a wall while wearing it appears small to none. Kohl rammed his face into several different objects and surfaces many times, yet the worst that happened was a couple of expected minor scuffs. Even forcefully slamming the device into a wall by hand led to little more than scratches.
This aspect of the Vision Pro's durability is fortunate: the device does show notifications that warn when you're too close to something in the immersive mode, but Kohl says they often appear too late to prevent collisions.
Kohl then started the all-important drop tests. The first one is a demonstration of how it's best not to hold the Vision Pro by its Light Seal, which magnetically connects to the headset. The fall is from slightly above waist height (Kohl says he's about six feet) onto a thick rug that likely saved the device from taking damage.
The next drop is from six feet onto a wooden floor. The screen survives, but testing the Vision Pro reveals that the fall broke its right speaker.
The headset's screen survives another fall from a marginally lower height. However, an area around what appears to be a delicate hinge within the head strap takes visible damage – the speaker locations appear quite delicate.
Despite increasingly higher drops causing extra damage to the band, the front glass stays in one piece and the Vision Pro keeps on functioning, albeit without the right speaker.
It's only when Kohl drops/throws the Vision Pro onto the ground from above his head while standing on his sofa (about ten to twelve feet) does the glass screen finally give up the fight and crack. What's surprising is that the sensors, camera, and layer of plastic underneath the screen all survived. What's more, the device still functioned.
The final takeaway here is that while dropping the Vision Pro could lead to issues with the speakers or something else in the headband area, it appears causing catastrophic fall damage to the expensive device is highly unlikely.