This week, Pico once again released further information on its upcoming PICO 4 Ultra MR headset, which the firm first debuted late last month. PICO unveiled the latest details at a launch event at Bytedance’s TikTok headquarters in London, UK.
In addition to the technical details, PICO’s newly unveiled information also highlights MR productivity tools, which seemingly mirror Vision Pro’s ambitions.
Moreover, during the event, PICO announced that the device would debut just days before Meta Connect 2024.
The PICO 4 Ultra will debut on September 20 for £529, and PICO’s additional Motion Trackers will debut at £79.00. PICO will open EU pre-orders on e-commerce platforms from September 6th until September 19th.
PICO is shipping the 4 Ultra in Europe, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, the UK, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland.
PICO 4 Ultra Workplace Features
The PICO 4 Ultra comes with PanoScreen Workspace, an MR multi-tasking productivity application that creates a panoramic immersive workspace by allowing users to place virtual monitors on top of their real-world environments.
The virtual desktop use case is commonplace, and most AR and MR devices hinge on this serious use case. However, the trend has not kicked off, but as lighter devices debut, more users may become ready to leverage XR wearables for extended periods of professional usage.
The immersive workplace solution also gives users control over their immersive desktops, including options to customise the size and layout of a virtual monitor to suit an individual’s workflow best.
Moreover, the PICO 4 Ultra device allows users to choose between fully immersive virtual working environments or augmented visualisations that keep users aware of their surroundings.
To support the fidelity of augmented workspaces, PICO is introducing proprietary environment perception algorithms to its competitive hardware.
The Bytedance-owned firm will also debut the PICO 4 Ultra Enterprise edition, a workplace-ready device. The firm is shipping the device this month and selling it through official partner members in Europe, Africa, North America, Australia, and New Zealand.
PICO also notes that it provides a developer suite to enable the creation of enterprise applications, making the debuting PICO 4 Ultra Enterprise edition ready for the healthcare, education, and training sectors.
More Vision Pro Style Features
The PICO 4 Ultra MR headset also leverages trending spatial video captures and playback features – made famous again by Vision Pro – allowing users to create 3D recordings of a time and place.
The spatial video features are interesting in terms of overall device competition. One aspect that sets PICO’s spatial recording and playback feature apart from others is its TikTok relationship, which provides a social media ecosystem that may boost the device’s visibility and ability to share spatial recordings.
Apple and upcoming headset vendors such as Samsung have deep hardware ecosystems that may boost the capabilities and adoption of XR devices.
However, digital service ecosystems also have value. Firms like Meta and PICO could see competitive success by integrating elements of social media platforms into a device. A current example of this in action is the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses, which are marketed as a tool to share personal experiences from a new POV angle, leveraging Instagram and other services.
PICO notes that its 4 Ultra device can record spatial video at a maximum resolution of 2048×1536 at 60FPS. Moreover, the PICO supports spatial recordings from Apple’s portfolio of compatible devices, including Vision Pro and iOS.
Further Pico 4 Ultra Details
The PICO 4 Ultra device utilizes full-colour pass-through to create an MR computing environment similar to Apple Vision Pro’s spatial computing goal. This is possible by implementing four environment-tracking cameras, two 32MP colour passthrough cameras, and an iToF depth-sensing camera.
PICO has stated that using passthrough cameras enables high resolution and low distortion, resulting in a display quality of 8MP, 20.6 pixels per degree (PPD), and 72 Hz.
Additionally, PICO showcased its Motion Tracker solution, which serves as an alternative controller, allowing users to interact with various immersive applications using full-body inputs. This lightweight motion tracker weighs just 27g and enables seamless input, with device pairing taking only five seconds.
Other notable features of the device include a 2160 × 2160 pixel resolution, WiFi 7, spatial audio recording, Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chipset, and 12 GB of RAM.
