Opening#

Hi, don't go, friend. This is not a paid promo video
Pico 4 has recently been hugely popular on Bilibili, and wherever Pico appears, there are always Quest-related voices
Coincidentally, Meta Connect has concluded, and Quest Pro is not a competitor to Pico 4

After watching many paid promo and personal experience videos on Bilibili, I had insomnia in the early hours of the 13th, and kept thinking about VR, AR, Pico, Quest, and domestic-related issues,
I got up and wrote a draft for three hours, and that's how this video came about

The video is divided into three parts, comparing pros and cons from the perspectives of hardware, software, and developers respectively.

The hardware section will additionally cover some XR (the collective term for AR, VR, and MR) related hardware knowledge and supply chain relationships, not only related to Pico 4, but also helpful for your future device purchases.

Paper-tearing effect

Hardware#

Limited by the iteration of Qualcomm XR chips, there isn't a huge difference between the hardware of the two.

Visuals#

Due to the immersive nature of VR, visuals are the most important feature.
To understand the visual experience of VR devices, we need to introduce several physical parameters

• Screen resolution W * H
• PPI
• PPD W / FOV
• FOV

FOV determines the size of the black border around our field of view after we put on a VR device, commonly known as the telescope effect, and directly affects the level of immersion
Because of the perspective relationship and the existence of FOV, PPD determines the clarity of the content we look at in the VR world, whether there is graininess, and whether text is sharp

Pico 4 uses two 2160×2160 resolution Fast LCD screens from JDI/Innolux, with PPI of 1200 on both, FOV 105°, and PPD 20.5
Quest 2 uses a single 3664x1920 resolution Fast LCD screen from Sharp, with PPI of 773,
FOV 100°, and PPD 18.32

Whether from on-paper specs or actual comparison, Pico 4's screen display effect is superior to Quest 2

But in my personal experience, the screens of both Quest 2 and Pico 4 look washed out, (I daily use an iPhone and a MacBook Air M1), and the optical modules used by both bring different problems

Pancake (Pico 4)

• Ghosting
• Lower brightness (but because Pico 4's screen is more advanced, in my personal experience the brightness difference between the two is not significant)

Fresnel lenses (Quest 2)

• Chromatic aberration and purple fringing at the edges of the image
• Ring-shaped texture when facing white light

Audio#

Quest 2 is at the level where you can hear something and it can make sound.

Pico 4 uses an acoustic module produced by Goertek (one of Apple's AirPods manufacturers), supports spatial audio, and is a noticeable improvement at first listen.

Comfort#

Usually, if you buy a Quest 2, you'll definitely want to pair it with a (domestic) Elite strap. The original head strap of Quest 2 isn't unusable, but after wearing it for a long time, your eye sockets feel very uncomfortable.

The Pico 4 itself can basically be seen as an improved version of Quest 2 + Elite strap. At the same time, the change in battery position and the weight reduction from pancake lenses make the overall weight very balanced, and it basically doesn't press on your head.

However, I've seen many experience videos mention that the sweet spot (optimal display position) is too low, causing it to still press on the bridge of the nose after long wear

I didn't encounter this problem.

Both support use with glasses and magnetic lenses.

Pico 4 is a bit more glasses-friendly; slightly larger frames can also fit inside.

Extension 1: Tracking#

I previously saw many videos on Bilibili reporting that Neo3 loses tracking. In actual testing, Pico 4 doesn't lose tracking even when placed behind the back.
Quest 2 can be paired with Vive tracker and many third-party trackers.

Pico 4 has matching trackers, a solution similar to SlimeVR.

From a question to the PM

Extension 2: Jitter#

Compared with Quest 2, the Pico 4 headset is very shaky—roughly the difference between a phone camera with and without optical image stabilization.

Especially after streaming

Pico 4 via Pico Assistant, Quest 2 via VD,

Pico 4's jitter worsens; even someone like me who doesn't get carsick or motion sick in 3D feels a bit nauseous.

I'll add a video

Extension 3: Network#

This is a problem unique to Quest 2. Due to the large number of UDP connections during operation, having a dedicated hardware router helps a lot; in addition, there is an extra cost.

Pico 4's network connection is very smooth; watching 8K live streams online has no stuttering at all.

Software#

Software is Pico 4's major weakness

• Pico Video perfectly adapts to Douyin, native landscape mode, supports 8K panoramic live streaming

Cannot adjust viewing distance/seat

• Streaming Assistant can connect to SteamVR and is very stable

But the jitter is severe; playing bs ex+ is impossible; playing things like VRC is acceptable

• File management has problems; nine out of ten times it can't read files, and one time it froze during playback

Using RE Manager to launch the Pico player works fine

• VD is available everywhere except mainland China
• Copyright warning: cannot install VR software from other sources; login required

Recommended tools for tinkering

• handshaker
• 黑阈 & 冰箱
• RE Manager & MT Manager

Developers#

VR App

• Closer to games in form

Unpacked the packages of Skybox, iQIYI VR, and Pico Video

• Requires development experience in Unity (or 虚幻) and Android
• Very different from traditional client development's control-MVVM-LCE

Ecosystem

• Google can hardly find any Pico-related development materials
• Unity has the Quest SDK built in; creating a new project from the VR template can be compiled directly without any setup

Epilogue: BOM, Supply Chain, and Domestic Manufacturing#

Actually, Pico and Quest come from the same manufacturer—Goertek, located in Weifang, Shandong.

Goertek also manufactures for Apple and is an ODM manufacturer

Pico comes from Goertek's efforts in the consumer field, so from its birth it could use hardware solutions almost on par with Meta's.

And according to this teardown report from an industry research institution,
the cost of Pico 4 128G is about 3,000 yuan,
while the regular price I saw on JD.com is 2,449, with 12 interest-free installments.

ByteDance's 9 billion yuan splurge gives Pico 4 the confidence of "long-termism."

From a ByteDance statement

But the manpower gap in software and algorithms still needs to be caught up.

In the end, I thought about it: a device with such excellent hardware always needs someone to be the first to eat crabs. As a dotNET programmer, getting started with Unity doesn't have much of a barrier. I hope I can later bring my own works to Pico and the dear viewers; if this really is the next tech wave, I can benefit from it too.