Documents in an FCC filing provide a glimpse of a Pico 4 standalone VR headset as well as Pico 4 Pro with added face and eye tracking.

First spotted by Protocol’s Janko Roettgers, the documents provide what may our first look at the successor to the Pico Neo 3 Link we just recently reviewed as “a decent Quest 2 alternative.” Pico is owned by the same parent company as TikTok — ByteDance — and when the company revealed it would test a consumer release for the Neo 3 Link in western nations starting in Europe, it hinted a successor would be likely in less than a year. Pico has amassed a solid number of high-quality games for its Android-based standalone VR platform while seemingly investing in more.

While we haven’t been able to discern too much yet from the documents we do have this interesting look at the lenses straight on as well as an internal schematic embedded below marking component locations. The device comes from a Goertek factory, runs Android Q, and the documents mention “there are two versions for EUT model A8110, one is ‘Pico 4 Pro’ another is ‘Pico 4’, both are identical except additional eye tracking & face tracking function for ‘Pico 4 Pro’. ”

We know the forthcoming Quest Pro, currently called Project Cambria by Meta, will feature a more balanced design, color mixed reality passthrough views with pancake lenses as well as built-in face and eye tracking to drive avatars in social experiences. Meta plans to ship the device this year with a high price that’s yet to be announced beyond the warning that it’ll be far above $800.

We’ll be curious, then, how the forthcoming Pico 4 and Pico 4 Pro hardware stack up against Quest 2 and Quest Pro. We’ll keep looking through these latest documents for other insights, but please let us know via [email protected] if you spot anything interesting we missed.

Ian Hamilton

Ian Hamilton is a journalist based in Arkansas and managing editor at UploadVR. He's covered VR full-time since 2015 as well as Oculus VR since 2012. He is interested in the people creating VR and AR hardware and software, their motivations, and how that work affects the people who spend significant time in simulations. If you have information to pass along you can send him a direct message on Twitter, Facebook or via email.