05-10-2021 07:53 PM
The Pico Neo 3 VR headset is apparently out now in China.
https://www.roadtovr.com/pico-neo-3-pro-eye-release-date-price
Specs:
- Snapdragon XR2 (same as Quest 2)
- 1832 x 1920 per eye (same as Quest 2)
- 4 camera inside out tracking
- optical tracking 6DOF controllers (the Pico Neo 2 used magnetic tracking)
- Wifi 6
- 90Hz curved screen
- 5300mAh battery (Quest 2 is 3640mAh)
- display port for native PC vr (THIS is how to do a hybrid!)
- Nvidia CloudXR for wifi streaming of OpenXR apps.
- Pico Link for wifi streaming of SteamVR apps.
- Hand tracking
In fact most of it (specs, look, etc) seem extremely similar to a Quest 2.
In China (where Facebook is banned so the Quest 2 isn't much use), the Pico Neo 3 is a consumer headset. Models range from $390us to $470us.
In the rest of the world, the Pico Neo 3 will be an enterprise headset. The Pico Neo 3 Pro at $699us and Pico Neo 3 Pro Eye (with Tobii eye tracking) at $899us will be available soon for businesses.
The camera tracking coverage is 238 x 195 degrees.
Very interesting interview (translated from Chinese) with Pico's CEO about how the tracking system (head and controllers) has evolved. Lots of interesting details in there. https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https://pu6wskf3ezpag6pcq2gan44ioa-ac4c6men2g...
Pico Neo 3 hand tracking:
28 degrees of freedom tracked.
05-11-2021 01:45 AM
Thanks, looking forward to a true Hybrid with a wired DP option. The Quest 2 comes pretty close, but no cigar imho. Wireless PCVR probably won't improve much until we get true wifi 6e 6Ghz. Maybe with Quest Pro or Quest 3?
05-11-2021 03:32 AM - edited 05-11-2021 03:32 AM
I think there will be some very similar headsets going forward with relatively small differences in specs.
The key comparisons for most people will be the investment in games & productivity apps for the respective stand-alone platforms and of course cost of the hardware.
If devs can port from one stand-alone to another easily, this will be less of an issue. For those who just use the headset for PCVR this isn't a thing but I think that's a small group.
What native games does the Neo 2 have?
Is OpenXR for Android/Snapdragon being adopted yet?
05-11-2021 04:11 AM
Wow supports PC-VR natively through a display port connection.
Very nice.
05-11-2021 07:31 AM
@DaftnDirect wrote:
The key comparisons for most people will be the investment in games & productivity apps for the respective stand-alone platforms and of course cost of the hardware.
If devs can port from one stand-alone to another easily, this will be less of an issue. For those who just use the headset for PCVR this isn't a thing but I think that's a small group.
What native games does the Neo 2 have?
Is OpenXR for Android/Snapdragon being adopted yet?
Yep, for PC it's just another SteamVR/OpenXR headset.
For stand alone, they do have a library of native games, but I can't find a list of them besides Superhot (and I'm bored of googling). It's only a consumer headset in China, so I think the games library is on their Chinese site.
BUT, Pico provide Unity, Unreal, native Android and Unity XR SDK support. In particular Unity XR is made for cross platform VR. You basically just tick a checkbox for which headset you want to support, the rest of the VR code is generic. So porting a Quest 2 game (using Unity XR) to a Pico Neo 3 should be just a checkbox (I'm saying that having never tested it, but I've got the Pico SDK installed right now, but don't have a Pico Neo to test it with).
Some other Pico benefits. (At least for the Pico Neo 2, not sure about the 3 yet)
No mobile phone needed, to set up the headset just turn it on, put it on and set the guardian boundary.
No account needed. (You do need an account to log in to the Pico store)
There's no developer mode toggle, it's always open to developers, just upload an APK from anywhere.
It's basically a Quest 2 (same SOC, same panel specs, same kind of tracking, etc) but with a much more open ecosystem. it's just a shame they don't care about western consumers, they could have done well during the Facebook account backlash last year.
05-11-2021 08:17 AM - edited 05-11-2021 08:27 AM
Yeah I was doing a similar google, I got through to what looks like Pico Interactive web store but I can't filter apps by headset. Seems to be mainly for the AIS, Pico and STRIVR G2 (clones of each other?) and the Goblin... not familiar with these. Not many for the Neo and very few for the Neo 2. Nearly all sub $5 games or free.
I read Superhot was a launch title but it wasn't listed, in fact the only app I recognised was Prime Video VR.
I guess headsets that are aimed at enterprise/business, plays down any consumer store-front concerns and I guess would have to rely almost exclusively on the PCVR side for consumer sales in the west.
05-11-2021 10:11 AM
China is a pretty big market though, and there's no Quest 2 there, so they may do fine without expanding the consumer side to the rest of the world. Still a shame, as a developer it looks quite appealing.
05-12-2021 05:27 AM
Very nice! That XR2 is all the rage this year, being the backbone of the new Vive Focus and Pico HMDs. Seems that Quest 2 was ahead of its time launching with XR2 last year.
The Pico is probably the best competitor to Quest that we've seen to-date, both in terms of specs and pricing.
I'll be keeping an eye on those YouTube videos for hands of reviews of both the consumer and business products.
05-12-2021 08:38 AM
It would be great if OpenXR for Android, combined with a third party side-loading, cross-platform, stand-alone store-front, along the lines of SideQuest emerges. I think eventually it will.
That's a very hyphenated sentence.
05-12-2021 09:54 AM
Both Quest 2 and Pico Neo 2&3 support Android OpenXR already. (Looks like HTC doesn't have it for Focus yet, just the Cosmos)
However apparently there's no standard OpenXR loader for Android so far, so a different process needs to be done for each headset to enable OpenXR in an app. Plus I imagine there could be other technical issues due to the Android environment being different on each. At least we're on the way to cross platform mobile VR.