Pico's 2026 headset will have 4K micro-OLED displays and a dedicated R1-style passthrough chip, a ByteDance executive reportedly said.

The Chinese news outlet STAR Market Daily reports that during the 2025 ByteDance Scholarship Award Ceremony, ByteDance Vice President of Technology, Yang Zhenyuan, described key details of Pico's next-generation headset.

We first heard that ByteDance's Pico was working on a high-end headset two years ago, when The Information reported that Pico 5 had been canceled in favor of a short-term Pico 4 refresh and a longer-term Apple Vision Pro competitor.

That short-term headset arrived last year as Pico 4 Ultra, while the Vision Pro competitor seems to be what Zhenyuan described.

Pico 5 Has Reportedly Been Canceled

Pico 5 has reportedly been canceled as ByteDance shifts its focus to a further out high-end headset to compete with Apple Vision Pro.

UploadVRDavid Heaney

According to STAR Market Daily, Zhenyuan said that the headset will feature "custom" micro-OLED panels with 4000 pixels per inch (PPI). That would match the pixel density of the 4K micro-OLED panels in Samsung Galaxy XR, Play For Dream MR, and Shiftall MeganeX.

Zhenyuan also reportedly said that the new Pico headset will have a self-developed dedicated chip for passthrough, handling real-time processing of the color cameras and delivering frames in less than 12 milliseconds.

The only headsets we've seen yet with a dedicated chip for passthrough are Apple's Vision Pro series, which feature the company's R1 chip for this.

The news, if accurate, suggests that Pico is looking to deliver best-in-class passthrough quality, exceeding competitors like Samsung that only use the ISP of the Qualcomm XR2 Gen 2 series chipset.

ByteDance Reportedly Working On Ultralight Pico Headset

ByteDance is working on a lightweight Pico headset with a tethered puck similar to Meta’s ultralight headset, The Information reports.

UploadVRHenry Stockdale

We should note that earlier this year, The Information reported that Pico is working on an ultralight headset resembling a pair of goggles, with a tethered compute puck (similar to Meta's next headset).

That report also noted that ByteDance was working on an R1 chip equivalent, but it's unclear whether the 2026 headset Zhenyuan described is the same as the ultralight headset, or whether Pico plans a range of high-end options with different form factors.

We'll keep a close eye on Pico in 2026 for any signs of a new headset announcement.

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