Pico Motion Trackers bring your legs into virtual reality
Pico has unveiled the Pico Motion Trackers, a simple and cheap solution for leg tracking on Pico headsets.
At yesterday's launch event in China, Pico introduced the Pico Motion Tracker alongside the Pico 4 Ultra. The accessory is compatible with Pico Neo 3, Pico 4 and Pico 4 Ultra.
Although the headset and trackers have only been announced for the Chinese market, a lot of information about the Pico 4 Ultra and the Pico Motion Tracker is already available in English on Pico's website, suggesting that an international launch is imminent.
The Pico Motion Trackers are attached to your ankle with a strap. To calibrate them, you have to simply look at the trackers for five seconds.
The headsets support up to three trackers. The trackers are sold in pairs. Optionally, a third sensor can be attached to the waist.
Battery life is 25 hours. The trackers are charged via USB-C. The weight of the tracker and base is 27 grams (without strap).
Over 20 standalone games from the Chinese Pico Store will be supported at launch. Pico also promises compatibility with PC VR apps via Pico Connect.
A pair of Pico Motion Trackers will cost ¥400, which is approximately $55. The product will go on sale in China at the same time as the Pico 4 Ultra, on September 2, 2024.
An affordable combination of 3-DoF and 6-DoF tracking
For tracking, Pico fuses the tracking data from an IMU sensor (for 3-DoF tracking) with that from 12 infrared lights seen by the headset (for optical 6-DoF tracking). Accurate spatial tracking should therefore only be achieved when the trackers are in the field of view of the headset's tracking cameras.
Pico's solution is a middle ground between Sony's low-cost Mocopi trackers, which use only IMUs, and HTC's expensive Vive Ultimate trackers, which use built-in cameras for precise tracking in space.
Pico promises a latency of 20 milliseconds and a step-recognition accuracy of 98%.
The Pico motion trackers can be seen from around 1:15 in the following trailer.
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