TikTok owner reportedly building its own XR glasses — rivaling Meta
There's no details on a release date as of yet for the goggles, codenamed 'Swan,' but given this is a make or break year for Meta, this report could cause a stir for Zuckerberg & Co. Here's what we know.
Details are thin on the ground, but we do know a few things. First of all, these mixed reality goggles are being built by Pico — the VR startup that is owned by ByteDance.
This is the company who worked on the Pico 4 VR headset, which I reviewed for Laptop Mag, and in short, the hardware was good but it was a barren landscape of lacking software support.
But it seems like after the canceled launch of Pico 5 in late 2023, the TikTok owner is taking a different approach here, by shrinking the tech down into a pair of goggles. Specifically, the claim is these will weigh around 0.28 pounds — similar to the Bigscreen Beyond VR headset.
In terms of what will power it, Pico is working on '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.'
All of this looks set to be offset from adding weight to the headset by using a puck connected to the device, a la Meta's Project Orion. For the puck itself, we've heard conflicting reports on whether it will be wireless or wired, so we can't say for sure.
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But this does steer in a similar direction to what we're seeing from Meta's new mixed-reality device, as we're seeing reports that the Meta Quest 4 has been postponed to 2027 in favor of an ultralight headset with a puck.
One thing is clear. Bulky VR headsets have had their time in the sun, and companies are working overtime to get all of this tech shrunk down into something that is the size of a pair of glasses.
You see that with Meta reportedly launching its next-gen smart specs with a display soon, Snap launching its next-gen AR specs in 2026, Apple being 'hell-bent' on launching its own glasses, and Xreal's Android XR specs.
It's a market that is heating up fast, and ByteDance is another juggernaut throwing its hat into the ring. Now there's just the pesky issue of whether these could be sold in the U.S. — given the whole potential TikTok ban thing.
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