In a high-rise building on Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, with large floor-to-ceiling windows, bright light, multiple floors, and a mirror on each pillar, the entire room looks more transparent, and there is a large wall on the other side of the entrance. On the screen, Pico Neo’s promotional video was repeatedly played. In the side room, through the glass, the author saw the tank-like peripherals that were used for experience at the exhibition. According to Pico's staff, they have just moved to a new office location. The previous office environment was hard. In the elevator leading to the Pico office floor, the author met with Mr. Zhou and finally got a chance to understand Pico's opinions on the Daydream platform.
After seeing Zhou Hongwei, the author threw out the first question he wanted to ask: "Compared to other all-in-one manufacturers, Pico is actually a latecomer to introduce an all-in-one machine. Does this have any effect on you?"
"In fact, at present, the entire VR market is still in its infancy, so it is not too late to enter the game at the moment," replied Zhou Hongwei. "I think that the entire VR market won't reach the same level as a smartphone in the short term. The degree, but by 2018, I estimate that VR devices can reach 5 out of 10 people with their own VR all-in-one."
If we refer to the rapid popularization of smart phones, we will find that the thousand yuan machine plays a crucial role in it. According to the news of the VR in the previous interview with the author, at present, under the category of VR all-in-one, the largest shipment is the thousand yuan machine. However, Zhou Hongwei believes that the function of the thousand dollar machine is not much different from that of the Cardboard. It is not so much a function of the education market as it is the “harmful†experience of the VR device.
It is well known that although the thousand-one machine also has basic VR functions, due to its hardware parameters, these devices can be used to watch videos once they need a low-latency, high-performance output experience such as VR games. The user can only feel vertigo and feel no fun at all. To make a device that does not harm the VR experience, at present, mobile devices must achieve the same configuration as the current flagship smart phones, and according to Zhou Hongwei, these "Ray" Picos are all scratching their heads.
For consideration of GPU performance, Pico chose the Opteron platform, and most of the all-in-one machines on the market use Samsung Orion processors. The author asks if this has anything to do with Goer acoustics – Zhou Hongwei worked as a vice president of research and development for Goethe's acoustics for ten years before seeing the opportunity for VR equipment to come out of business. Zhou Hongwei replied: "We have cooperated with Goer acoustics at the supply chain level, but this point has little effect on our choice of Qualcomm Snapdragon processor because Goethe acoustics also started to do some on the Samsung Orion platform. Cooperation. We chose the Dragon platform more for product considerations. In the future, there may be more VR games, which requires strong GPU support.â€
Another thing worth noting is that although Qualcomm has close cooperation with Pico, Pico's body size is not enough to find Qualcomm's custom chips. The hardware chip performance is only the cornerstone of VR equipment. The most important thing is software optimization. On the VR all-in-one machine, it is relatively easy to compare the parameters. This is also the time that manufacturers often display at the conference, but Daydream The platform is optimized from the ground floor of Android to reduce the optimization of the system level. Then these VR all-in-one's efforts in delay optimization are not in vain?
Daydream brings us more opportunities"In fact, the delay is not just system response," said Zhou Hongwei. "In fact, there are delays in the specific UI interface and location tracking. These are things the Daydream platform cannot solve. Daydream proposed an interactive solution. But their plan is relatively simple."
In fact, the main purpose of the Daydream platform is to clear the system optimization problem for mobile phone manufacturers to enter the field of VR. Therefore, the mobile phone manufacturers that have solved the delay problem, and the mobile phone manufacturers that have the advantages of the supply chain and offline channels appear to be in this There is a huge advantage in this area.
"Mobile phone manufacturers are just one of our competitors. I don't think that handset manufacturers can completely occupy the entire market. After all, VR all-in-one machines have a great advantage over mobile phone VR. Mobile phones need to take into account various other functions, and VR The machine is just a pure VR device, for example, the mobile phone is already on a 2K screen, but it is not likely to be on a 4K screen, but the VR one does not have much scruples in this respect.The current VR-capable smartphone All of them are flagship smart phones,†said Zhou Hongwei. “In addition, a smart phone is at least about 5 inches in size, and it has already reached more than 100 grams without an optical module. Moreover, the mobile phone has only one camera, and the VR one can To be even lighter, like the Pico Neo, a split design is used to separate the batteries and the location tracking module is built directly inside the VR, which is not possible with the phone."
According to Zhou Hongwei, the VR all-in-one and handset VR have their own advantages. The Daydream platform is to broaden the mobile VR market. Both of these are more to satisfy the user's needs for different scenarios, not one party to eat. The other side of the relationship. In addition, in the future, Pico will not rule out cooperation with other mobile phone manufacturers to customize the business model of VR devices. At the earliest time, Pico's first-generation device was a HMD product connected with LeEco's mobile phone through a Type-C port.
The benefits brought by the Daydream platform are not only the optimization of the Android system level, but more importantly, a broad platform has been set up to allow more developers to participate in the development of VR content, and Pico's strategy on content is also the same. . Pico has its own developer support program, but more of it supports content from the Daydream platform and does not have its own exclusive content.
The consumer version will only go online next year, because...At present, the Pico Developer Edition has been shipped, and is officially on sale in online stores such as JD.com and Tmall. However, according to Pico's development plan, they will also launch the consumer version of the device. Zhou Hongwei told the author that the reason they chose to go public next year is that the current mobile VR ecosystem still lacks excellent content, and at the same time, the related hardware supply chain. Still to be matured.
Now every VR all-in-one will more or less mention the location tracking solution, Pico will also take action in this regard, but it is not disclosed. The existing location tracking scheme on the market is similar, and the author guesses that it is similar to the PSVR-like camera optical tracking scheme.
The Pico team currently has more than 270 people, including over 200 R&D personnel. Zhou Hongwei believes that the most important thing for VR-based ones is the interaction, which is also the most missing member in their team. But for them, funding is not a problem. They are not short of funds. What they need more is content support. Therefore, priority will be given to investors who have accumulated a certain amount of content. As for the weaker channels of VR startups, he is confident to say that he already has a strong partner, but it is not yet easy to disclose.
Zhou Hongwei stated that his more promising technology is AR technology, because AR's user volume and usage scenarios will be wider, but in the short term due to technical reasons will not enter the consumer field, if VR usher in 2018 , then AR will be another 3 nights.
For Pico, the Daydream platform is more of an opportunity. Whether it is a mobile phone manufacturer or an all-in-one machine manufacturer, they can all “fly up†in this wave. Both have their own strengths and are a kind of court-affiliated relationship. In this wave of waves, Pico is more likely to be "just right" with mobile VR vendors.