There have been many standalone headsets so far announced as coming out in 2018. Names such as the Oculus Go and HTC’s Vive Focus for example, but with the latter only targeting the Chinese market. There is, however, another contender in the field of standalone that people tend to forget – Pico Interactive. Pico managed quite the feat in releasing their standalone head-mounted display (HMD) to the market before anybody else.
The Pico Goblin last was released last summer through Amazon and the company’s own website, retailing at $249 (USD). The 3 Degrees of Freedom (DoF) standalone HMD apparently performing well over the holiday period and like any other standalone headset it makes for a great introduction to virtual reality (VR) if you do not have a VR capable phone or computer.
VRFocus spoke to Pico Interactive’s Communications Manager Will Winston about their VR range of products and how they are looking to grow as a company.
Besides showing VRFocus the Pico Goblin, Winston also showcases the Pico Neo CV. Unveiled at last year’s International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), it returned for CES 2018. It features 6DoF, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon VR SDK, two 1.5K at 90Hz VR displays and built in hi-fi speakers. The Pico Neo CV has dual cameras for the WorldSense inside-out tracking system and can be ordered with either two Bluetooth controllers for $749 (USD) or one Bluetooth controller for $549 (USD).
The SDK will have features such as multi-interaction controller support and inside out 6DoF tracking to allow developers to create videogames, 360-degree video and other immersive experiences. The SDK will also feature a Unity plug-in to allow for the porting of games and other software to the Pico Neo CV from other platforms. At the moment it can be pre-ordered by business customers only, but will be available to consumers late spring.
Both the Pico Goblin and Pico Neo CV will have 60 titles, an open platform to third party developers, 360 videos, games as well as access to Web VR that would enable users to access any 360 videos that are hosted on an internet browser. Both standalone headsets will also be able to get access to Viveport, which means that users are able to download up to 400 titles from the Vive owned platform. Pico Neo customers will have access to the Vive Wave platform too, and all the Vive Focus compatible software available through that. Meaning customers will have access to videogames purchases from both Viveport and the Pico Store.
Pico are not only focusing on creating standalone VR HMD’s, but are also bringing to the market Pico Zense high-resolution time-of-flight (TOF) depth-sensing technology to help with providing a solution for machine vision hardware and software. These can be used for machine vehicles or drones, but also for VR developers. Pico interactive provide sample code, development tools, and standard SDK development kits to to help provide with standard and customized reference design support to help quickly integrate 3D vision capabilities into various products.
Here are some technical specs:
Dcam 100 heat and cold based off how far you are from the camera.
- TOF sensor module
- Depth resolution: 640 * 480 @ 30FPS
- Viewing angle: 69 ° (vertical) 51 ° (horizontal)
- Operating System Support: Linux / Windows 7/8/10 / Android
Dcam 710 works outside, bigger and more capabilities.
- TOF + RGB image sensing module
- Depth resolution: 640 * 480 @ 30FPS
- RGB resolution: 1920 * 1080 @ 30FPS
- Viewing angle: 69 ° (vertical) 51 ° (horizontal)
- Operating System Support: Linux / Windows 7/8/10 / Android
Pico Zense can potentially help VR developers when they want to scan 3D objects and virtual environments and will be coming out in February 2018. It can be pre-ordered on the website here.
To find out more watch the video below.