Pico Neo 3 new specs and photos revealed!

I was browsing the web on a Chinese website (don’t ask me why) and I found a banner that was promoting the Pico Neo 3 on JD.com (a popular e-commerce website). Clicking on it, I surprisingly found an item page with the complete listing of its features and a long series of photos of the Pico Neo 3. I guess that in China the preorder campaign has already started, so the information about it is already public, and for sure it has been an interesting read for me… so I wanted to share its content with you. Pico Neo 3 is one of the most interesting headsets that are coming this year, and so I was very eager to have new info, and I’m happy to have found them and be able to spread them to the community.

Pico Neo 3 Specifications

Merging the information that we already knew, plus the information written in Chinese, I can tell you that the specifications more or less will be:

• Qualcomm XR2 chipset
• 4K low-persistence 90 Hz Curved Display
• Wi-Fi 6 connectivity
• 3 Physical IPD adjustments
• Optical Positional tracking, with 4 tracking cameras
  • Maximum 10m x 10m tracking area and mm-precision accuracy
• Optical Tracked Controllers, with 32 tracking points
• All-PU materials fabrication, for easier sanitization
• 5300 mAh battery, for around 2.5h of usage
• Integrated audio, with 3.5mm jack to connect external headphones
• Wi-fi streaming to SteamVR integrated in the runtime

Pico Neo 3 Photos

Here you are the photos of the device that I’ve found on JD, with a commentary of mine about what you can see there.

This first photo doesn’t show us much more than we already knew… the Pico Neo 3 looks like a Neo 2 with 4 tracking cameras. A merge of the Neo 2 and the Quest 2 🙂

This skewed view unveils a bit more of the controllers, and also shows that below the headset there is a 3.5mm jack and two buttons to turn the volume up and down

In this internal view, it is possible to see the lenses of the headset, plus the famous IPD regulations that the company is adding. Notice that above the lenses there are some tiny arrows drawn in white: this means that, exactly like in the Quest 2, you can move the lenses inward and outward to mechanically adjust the IPD.

On the sides, it is also possible to see the holes of the integrated speakers.

In this picture, it is possible to see clearly the controllers of the Pico Neo 3 for the first time. They look heavily inspired by the ones of the Quest 2, but they have an additional menu button on each device, I guess to maintain compatibility with the usual buttons schema of the other Pico headsets. They also have a quite long handle.

Other interesting related pictures

On the listing page, there is also this image that shows that the Pico Neo 3 can track spaces up to 10m x 10m with millimeter accuracy. It can also remember multiple environments. This is even better than the Quest 2, which usually can track an area wide a bit more than 7m x 7m. While this feature is mostly useless at home, this large tracking area could be very beneficial for LBEVR venues, and multiplayer training experiences.

Pico highlights how the tracking has been tested by the team for more than 10,000 hours to increase its accuracy and reliability.

The pricing information is not useful: we only know that the price ends in 99, and it is less than 10,000RMB, that is less than 1200€… something that was pretty obvious. The full unveiling will happen on May, 10th as the company had already announced.

Final considerations

The Pico Neo 3 on paper looks like a good clone of the Quest 2, with some features that are even superior to it, like the very big tracking area. Of course, a headset must be judged when you have it on your head, because some features that may good on paper, may not be implemented well… but from what we know, it seems a headset that can have good success in China. Of course, pricing will be crucial... if it will cost €700 like the Neo 2, I doubt it will be able to appeal to the Chinese market. We’ll see that on May, 10th! I hope that this can be a good headset because we strongly need successful players in the standalone market.

Caveat

The listing on JD regards the Chinese SKU of the Pico Neo 3. Pico is preparing a version for the West that should be distributed in the late summer of 2021. It will be aimed at the enterprise sector and may have some differences with the images and the specifications portrayed above.

So, what do you think about the Pico Neo 3? After having seen these pictures and read the full specifications, are you more interested in it? Let me know in the comments here below! (And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter to get more articles like this straight in your inbox!)

PS I want to thank a lot my Chinese assistant Miss S for having helped me in translating some parts of the shop page, she’s been precious as always!

(Header Image from JD.com)