Pico’s 2026 headset could have 4K micro-OLED shows and a devoted R1-style passthrough chip, a ByteDance govt reportedly stated.
The Chinese language information outlet STAR Market Day by day studies that in the course of the 2025 ByteDance Scholarship Award Ceremony, ByteDance Vice President of Expertise, Yang Zhenyuan, described key particulars of Pico’s next-generation headset.
We first heard that ByteDance’s Pico was engaged on a high-end headset two years in the past, when The Info reported that Pico 5 had been canceled in favor of a short-term Pico 4 refresh and a longer-term Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional competitor.
That short-term headset arrived final yr as Pico 4 Extremely, whereas the Imaginative and prescient Professional competitor appears to be what Zhenyuan described.
Pico 5 Has Reportedly Been Canceled
Pico 5 has reportedly been canceled as ByteDance shifts its focus to an extra out high-end headset to compete with Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional.
In keeping with STAR Market Day by day, Zhenyuan stated that the headset will function “customized” micro-OLED panels with 4000 pixels per inch (PPI). That might match the pixel density of the 4K micro-OLED panels in Samsung Galaxy XR, Play For Dream MR, and Shiftall MeganeX.
Zhenyuan additionally reportedly stated that the brand new Pico headset could have a self-developed devoted chip for passthrough, dealing with real-time processing of the colour cameras and delivering frames in lower than 12 milliseconds.
The one headsets we have seen but with a devoted chip for passthrough are Apple’s Imaginative and prescient Professional sequence, which function the corporate’s R1 chip for this.
The information, if correct, means that Pico is trying to ship best-in-class passthrough high quality, exceeding opponents like Samsung that solely use the ISP of the Qualcomm XR2 Gen 2 sequence chipset.
ByteDance Reportedly Working On Ultralight Pico Headset
ByteDance is engaged on a light-weight Pico headset with a tethered puck much like Meta’s ultralight headset, The Info studies.
We should always notice that earlier this yr, The Info reported that Pico is engaged on an ultralight headset resembling a pair of goggles, with a tethered compute puck (much like Meta’s subsequent headset).
That report additionally famous that ByteDance was engaged on an R1 chip equal, however it’s unclear whether or not the 2026 headset Zhenyuan described is similar because the ultralight headset, or whether or not Pico plans a spread of high-end choices with completely different type components.
We’ll preserve an in depth eye on Pico in 2026 for any indicators of a brand new headset announcement.
