ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, is reportedly working on mixed reality goggles, The Information reports. The in-development device is designed to layer digital objects over your view of the real world, and is supposed to compete directly with Meta's upcoming mixed reality products.
The goggles are being built by ByteDance's virtual reality startup Pico, the creators of the Pico 4 VR headset. Pico's past products have attempted to match Meta's Quest headsets in terms of features, but these new goggles apparently represent a different approach (albeit one still positioned as an alternative to Meta). Rather than a bulky headset, the goggles are supposed to be small and light, about the size of the Bigscreen Beyond VR headset, which weighs 0.28 pounds. Pico is keeping the device lightweight by offloading most of the computing work to a puck that's connected to the goggles over a wire. Meta's prototype Orion AR glasses used a wireless puck for a similar weight-saving purpose when the company demoed them in November 2024.
Pico is also reportedly working on building "specialized chips for the device that will process data from its sensors to minimize the lag or latency between what a user sees in AR and their physical movements," The Information writes.
Plenty of the details are still up in the air, but the report notes that the ByteDance / Pico goggles should be very similar to Meta's next mixed reality device. Following the release of the Quest 3S, Meta reportedly postponed work on the Quest 4 in favor of developing lightweight mixed reality goggles, according to UploadVR. The company has been publicly pushing AI wearables like the newly introduced Oakley Meta HSTN glasses, and it seems like its next Quest device will be closer to smart glasses than a VR headset with controllers.
It's not known when ByteDance's goggles will actually be released or where they'll be sold. Current Pico headsets aren't sold in the US, and given the concern over ByteDance's ownership of TikTok, it seems unlikely the company would be able to sell a mixed reality device without pushback.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/tiktok-owner-bytedance-is-reportedly-building-its-own-mixed-reality-goggles-212541450.html?src=rss
