The design of Pico’s next headset leaked in videos from a public SDK, and it looks like a cross between Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR.
After years of rumors, Pico and TikTok owner ByteDance officially publicly teased its next headset back in March, calling it ‘Project Swan’.
At the time, Pico said the headset will have micro-OLED panels with 4000 pixels per inch (PPI), a dual-chip architecture with a self-developed coprocessor for computer vision and image processing, and a new main processor that will have twice the CPU and GPU performance of the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 in today’s Pico 4 Ultra and Meta Quest 3 headsets. It also detailed many of the visionOS-like features of Pico OS 6 and the RealityKit-like Pico Spatial Engine.
Pico’s Next Headset Has 4000 PPI Micro-OLEDs, Powerful New Chip & Next-Gen OS
ByteDance’s Pico announced the key display and compute specs of its next headset, coming later this year, and detailed the revamped XR operating system it will run.
While the company showed a stylized silhouette of the headset, it did not show an actual image or render, nor did it give any details at all about the design.
But as first reported by XR enthusiast Luna, videos depicting the design are present in a public Pico SDK.
Pico’s next headset, as leaked in its public SDK.
The clips show a headset that is clearly inspired by both Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR, with a rear strap almost identical to the former’s Solo Knit Band and a visor and forehead pad strongly resembling the latter.
They show an external tethered puck of some kind, which may be a battery or also contain compute.
Further, they depict the use of tracked controllers that strongly resemble the Pico 4 Ultra controller, including drawing a boundary, though it’s unclear whether they’ll be included in the box or not.
What’s most clear here is that Pico’s next headset is taking on Apple and Samsung, not competing with Meta, and we expect a similarly high price point.
Graphics Depicting Meta’s Next Headset Found In Quest Firmware
Graphics depicting Meta’s upcoming ultralight headset with a tethered compute puck, codenamed Phoenix, have been found in Quest firmware.
We’ll keep a close eye on Pico in the coming weeks and months to bring you any official updates on the headset’s specs, features, and release plans.
