ByetDance, the parent company of famous content creation app TikTok, is developing ultra-lightweight mixed reality goggles through its Virtual reality subsidiary company, Pico. The ultra-light weight factor could be as big as an industry breakthrough. VR goggle users often struggle with the weight and size the goggles come in. Given this context, when ByteDance offers a VR goggle weighing only 0.28 pounds, it would become the fans-favorite in no time.
In a landscape where its competitors, Meta and Apple are sweating on cramming more power into headsets and delivering $3,500 tech demos, Bytdance is solving a more people centric problem; nobody wants to wear a computer on their face for hours.
The secret behind this groundbreaking innovation is no secret. The processor which makes the goggles this big and heavy, would be staying in your pocket and not your face. The tethered puck, containing this process would be living in your pocket along with your phone. With quite a codename, “Swan”, the goggle aims at competing head-on with Meta’s upcoming MR devices.
Bytedance is not stopping there, rather they’re working on making this immersive experience more real and lived. It’s building custom chips that will eliminate the lag that usually kills the immersion. That’s where ByteDance’s TikTok expertise would come in handy, as their proven track record of masterfully optimizing real time experience would give them an obvious edge in minimizing MR latency, something even Meta still struggles with.
The geopolitical hurdles are real, but if ByteDance nails the user experience, they’ll have something Meta doesn’t: wearable tech that’s actually wearable. While competitors chase specs, ByteDance is chasing comfort. That’s how you win the mainstream market.
