Zhou Hongwei, CEO of PicoVR. Photo credit: PicoVR.
On the top floor of a skyscraper called “Shining Mansion,” Chinese virtual reality startup Pico occupies a circular office space. The foyer has floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook Beijing city proper – both rainy and smoggy on the day I visit. Meeting rooms are named after star signs.
“At the time, everyone was like Oculus and Sony,” Henry Zhou, CEO of Pico, tells Tech in Asia. He’s referring to 2015, the year Pico was founded. “There was already news that they were going to launch a VR product, but it was only PC-based.”
“I personally felt that […] our product had to be something personal or a portable product,” he says.
The startup is tackling the mobile segment of VR hardware, where headsets rely on the processing power of smartphones. Comparable to Google Daydream and Samsung Gear VR, Pico’s devices offer an untethered VR experience that’s more convenient and accessible for the average consumer, who may not want to drop hundreds of dollars on an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, which offer higher quality but need to be connected to a computer.
In China, which has more than 600 million smartphone users, many startups have adopted the same strategy, including Xiaomi’s Mi VR.
As smartphones get more powerful, mobile VR will satisfy the masses.
“Everyone has a smartphone, and unless you want to play complex room scale enabled games, you don’t really have a need for PC/console based system,” Matthew Lee, principal at venture capital fund ChinaRock Capital Management, tells Tech in Asia.
“As smartphones get more powerful and battery life increases and folks figure out inside out tracking on the smartphones […] I think mobile VR will satisfy the masses until there is some sort of hybrid version that runs by itself (without the phone) and is [of] higher quality than mobile but similarly priced,” he says.
Pico’s latest headset, the untethered Pico Neo CV. Photo credit: Pico.
Inside out tracking is a type of technology that enables positional tracking via headsets. That means that instead of navigating through VR experiences without actually moving – or being stuck in static 360-degree environments – headsets with inside out tracking can map your movement to virtual reality.
However, most positional tracking systems still require high-end systems like Valve’s Lighthouse, which use external cameras and sensors, as inside out tracking technology is still in its early stages.
Hardware hurdles
Early days
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