Today has been my first day at AWE Europe in Lisbon, Portugal. I had quite a few interesting experiences, and I met a lot of amazing people. I just left a very fun rooftop party just to write an article for you, and I hope you appreciate that! In this article, you are going to discover with me some cool information about the Pico 4 Enterprise, the enterprise version of the Pico 4. Pico has just announced its launch date and price, plus I had a very fast hands-on with it… and also a very embarrassing moment with the Pico team (and I know you like reading about my embarrassing moments). So keep reading this post to discover it all!
Pico 4 Enterprise
Today at AWE Europe, Oliver Woehler and Alizé Amrani from Pico took the stage to perform the launch of the Pico 4 Enterprise. Oliver also offered the possibility of having private meetings with him to have more details about the device. Since I attended both events, I can give you quite an interesting overview of the device.
Pico 4 Enterprise is the Enterprise version of the Pico 4, which launched a few weeks ago as the true first competitor of Meta Quest 2. Pico 4 Enterprise should not be confused with Pico 4 Pro, which is sold in China as a prosumer device. Pico 4 Enterprise is a device ONLY for enterprises, studied for B2B usage and that can be purchased only by companies through dedicated Pico sales channels.
Oliver from Pico stressed this point a lot: Pico makes a clear separation between its consumer offering, which has been de facto kickstarted by Bytedance, and its enterprise offering, which has been always a core business for the company. The two things are separated, and there are no gray zones in the middle. If you are a consumer, you buy the Pico 4. If you are a company, the Pico 4 Enterprise. Over.
Pico 4 Enterprise hardware features
On the hardware side, Pico 4 Enterprise is basically a 256GB Pico 4, with some improvements in hygiene and sensors.
Since for companies guaranteeing high hygiene standards is important, all Pico devices for enterprise use facemasks and cushions that are in materials that are anti-bacterial and which are easily washable. You could already see the difference in the Pico Neo 3 series: while the Pico Neo 3 Pro had a facemask in leatherette, which is easily cleanable, the Pico Neo 3 Link had a fabric facemask, which is much more comfortable, but at the same time can soak up in sweat, so it’s good only for personal use.
On the sensors side, there are 2 sensors for eye tracking and an additional sensor for face tracking. These sensors can be used to track what the user is doing, for instance, to provide better training. With eye tracking the application can see what the user is looking at, so for instance an experience for training plane pilots (like the ones of my friends at KLM), could check if they are looking at the right indicators before making the plane take off.
As for the rest, on the hardware side, there is nothing much to say with respect to the consumer Pico 4. The Pico 4 Enterprise is a headset that is powerful, small, and comfortable. Ah, and the front plate is gold-ish, and not black, so that to give it a more premium touch.
Specifications
Let me copy-paste the specs of the Pico 4 from my previous article, so that you can understand how interesting is this device:
- Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2, 8 Cores 64 bit, 2.84GHz
- RAM: 8GB LPDDR4X, 2133MHz
- Storage: 256GB, UFS 3.0
- Display
- Type: 2.56″ x2 LCD display
- Resolution: 4,320 x 2,160 (2,160 x 2,160 per eye)
- PPI: 1200
- Refresh rate: 72Hz / 90Hz
- Field of view (FOV): 105° Diagonal
- IPD: Support stepless adjustment with a range of 62～72mm
- Audio:
- Speaker: 360° surrounding stereo speakers, supporting 3D spatial sound
- Microphone: Dual Mic up to 30dB noise reduction and 50dB echo cancellation
- Cameras: Fisheye Cameras x 4, 16MP RGB Camera x 1
- Controllers
- Type: 6DoF broadband haptic motion controller x 2
- Buttons: Joystick / Trigger / Grip / Menu / Capture / Home / X/Y (Left hand) / A/B (Right hand)
- Motor: Broadband Motor, 50~500Hz, can support up to 2.8G vibration
- Battery
- Headset: 5300mAh, which lasts about 2.5~3 hours in active use
- Controllers: Two AA batteries, which last about 80 hours in active use
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.1, USB-C
- Weight: 295g (without straps), 586g (with straps)
- Operating system: Pico OS, Enterprise version
Pico 4 Enterprise enterprise features
Where the Pico 4 Enterprise is different from the standard Pico 4 is not much the hardware, but the services associated with it.
Pico summarized this in 3 keywords: Manage, Secure, and Customize.
First of all the operating system is a special version of Pico OS 5, called Pico Enterprise OS 5, which offers features that are interesting for companies. And it runs a custom version of the app store, which is specific for enterprise applications. In this, Pico is taking a direction similar to the one that HTC took for the Vive Focus 3. It is going even further because it may implement in the future private app stores for big corporates.
Then Pico offers the Pico Business Suite, a complete suite of tools that can be useful for companies, like for instance the possibility of managing multiple headsets together through a common management panel (usually offered through third-party partners). Or the capability of activating Kiosk mode in the device, so that during exhibitions you are sure that always the same application is running from the moment you turn on the headset.
Then the headset strictly follows standards for what concerns data privacy and data protection. In 2023, it is going to be certified with ISO 27001/27701 which are standards about information security. This is incredibly relevant for companies that work with sensitive information, like the ones in the healthcare sector.
In the end, the system is open and works with no account. It also works offline, without needing internet, which is fundamental if you are using it for instance in exhibitions. Pico told me also that they analyzed the needs of their customers and understood that different types of customers (from different sectors) require different settings and features, usually. So they are going to pre-configure the most popular commands for developers for every possible kind of customer.
Also, developers can access on this device the raw camera stream. And hand tracking is finally coming soon. What really surprised me is that Pico is developing in-house both the eye tracking and the hands tracking solutions!
Price and release date
Pico 4 Enterprise is going to be open for preorders on the first week of November 2022 for €899 + VAT through the dedicated network of resellers. Remember that you can buy it only if you are a valid company. The shipping is expected to happen at some time in December.
Comparison with Quest Pro
Pico 4 Enterprise is 600€ cheaper than Quest Pro, which is going to cost 1500€ + VAT. And it is lighter, has longer battery life, and has higher resolution. And it is clearly made for companies, without confusing things (e.g. Meta doesn’t invoice its devices for companies, which is quite absurd)
But Quest Pro has much better facial tracking (because it uses 3 sensors and not just 1), better mixed reality (because it uses dedicated higher-resolution cameras for it), and better controllers.
My opinion at a glance is that if a company has to do pure VR, then Pico 4 Enterprise is much better and is even cheaper, but if it has to rely on innovative features like mixed reality, then the Quest Pro, even if more expensive, can still have its advantages.
Pico Neo 3 Pro and Pico Neo 3 Pro Eye
So, are the Pico Neo 3 Pro series device being discontinued? Yes, and no. Since Pico knows that companies need reliability, it is going to still sell the Pico Neo 3 Pro series to companies for the whole 2023, and will still guarantee support for the whole 2024. This way, all companies that are using the Neo 3 are not forced to switch immediately to Pico 4, but can continue using the solution they are already employing.
Hands-on Pico 4 Enterprise
I had a very quick hands-on with Pico 4 Enterprise. It was incredibly quick, so I can’t provide a reliable review. Take everything I say here below as just a “first impression” opinion, which may be proven wrong at a later analysis.
Design and comfort
The Pico 4 Enterprise looks quite small: the use of pancake lenses makes it really thin and lightweight. For me, as I come from the Oculus DK2 generation, seeing such a small lightweight VR headset was amazing.
The device looks also well-made, and more polished than previous Pico devices.
Visuals
The headset had very crisp visuals, with very bright colors. The pixel density was impressive, and no screen door effect was present. The FOV looked nice, but I had not noticed such a huge bump to leave me impressed.
Anyway, I could see around the virtual representation of the controllers some kind of strange brighter border, which made me think that maybe Pico hasn’t completely solved its problems with chromatic aberrations.
Audio
Integrated audio worked quite well.
Controllers
The controllers, which I personally leaked before the launch of the device, are very well made. They are quite ergonomic, but heavier than I thought. I think that having 2 batteries is influencing their weight.
Tracking
Tracking of headset and controllers was rock solid.
Passthrough vision
I was a bit disappointed by the passthrough view: it looked flat as if there was no depth. Also, the visuals were colored, but with some grey noise on it. Plus, when some object was too close (like my hands), it was heavily distorted. It’s not bad, it is always cool to see RGB passthrough, but… after having tried Varjo XR-3 and Cosmos XR, I have other standards.
Enterprise OS
Pico Enterprise OS was the standard Pico operating system, but it was interesting that I had a custom menu with just a few apps I could launch and nothing more. No store to download applications from, no settings window, nothing. This is what a company may want to give to its employees, and it worked quite well.
My embarrassing moment
Ok, so the serious part of the article ends here. If you were here just for the info about Pico 4, you can stop reading here. If instead, you want to read about my embarrassing moment with Pico people, please go on.
So… Pico was having its private meetings in a dedicated section of the event venue. One PR guy from the PR company reached me and accompanied me to the demo room, where I met Oliver from Pico. We had a quick chat, then he said he wanted me to try the device. You know, Oliver works with enterprises for Pico, so he’s a nice guy, very professional and very German. Also the PR guy was very professional. And both just spent the day doing professional meetings with companies and enterprises. But I don’t know for what reason, I decided that it was a good idea to make a stupid joke with them.
So I stopped in front of the door, and I looked them into their eyes and said: “By the way, before we start, I have to tell you some news: I HAVE JUST BEEN NOMINATED META BRAND AMBASSADOR”. Of course, it’s not true, but I told them with my typical serious face and voice tone of when I say things with sarcasm, so it sounded real. But… that was not the right moment nor the right audience for a similar joke. I was expecting a burst of laughter, but actually, a DEEP SILENCE fell in the room, with the two Pico people looking at me as if If had said a terrible thing, I don’t know, like that my job is killing cute kitties. Time stopped like in a Superhot match, but here moving my body was not able to change anything. After 3 seconds which were like 3 hours in my mind, I decided that was time to abandon my sarcasm and make things clear: “Guys, I’m joking, it’s not true! I just said that for fun!”. Silence again. No one was speaking after the name of the unmentionable company was mentioned. In those seconds of total embarrassment, I thought that it could be great to have a shovel with me, and dig a hole in the floor so that I could fall to the center of the Earth and escape from that moment.
Anyway, after a while, Oliver talked with me as if nothing ever happened. He made me try the Pico Neo 4 Enterprise devkit and put it on my head with the RGB passthrough activated and seeing my non-reaction, he said “com’on man, this is the moment when usually people go in awe!” and I answered something like “yeah, I mean, the passthrough is nice, but yeah, a bit flat… and grainy… I tried the Varjo XR-3, and that is better…”, which in hindsight probably was not the best thing to say. I then asked him about why Pico wasn’t doing passthrough mixing the stream of the tracking cameras with the RGB one through AI and he said I was asking too technical questions for that type of meeting. I guess that after all of these inappropriate things I’ve said, Oliver won’t want to see me for the rest of his life…
So this is how I ruined my relationship with one of the most important VR companies in the world, after years spent building it. But luckily, I’ve still this thing of being a Meta brand ambassador which is going well for me…
(Oh please, don’t look at me like this you too… I’m still joking about it!)