Global extended reality headset and software maker Pico Immersive Pte Ltd., today unveiled Pico OS 6, the company’s most significant update to its virtual reality operating system to date and teased its upcoming headset for 2026, dubbed “Project Swan.”

Pico OS 6 will incorporate a new Spatial Engine, designed to provide powerful components designed to provide the scaffolding for different types of digital content display. The company said it spent the past two years designing user experience around how displays handle traditional 2D apps, 3D experiences and the physical world in tandem.

Short-video sharing app TikTok owner, ByteDance Ltd., acquired Pico in 2021 amid the flurry of “metaverse” headlines and interest in virtual and extended reality. The company has remained a subsidiary. Although attention to VR has cooled somewhat in comparison to artificial intelligence, VR and extended reality companies still have a noticeable market in the United States and China.

The company said OS 6 will bring Android apps directly into its ecosystem, bringing down barriers to immersive environments. This will allow users to run apps such as spreadsheets or design software while remaining fully involved in 3D environments.

For developers, the update brings a more consistent foundation for experience building, while blending familiar immersive interactions with common tools and interactions in an easy-to-handle way.

The company said the Spatial Engine marks a milestone in extended reality user experience, making everyday tasks smoother and more reliable for users. It takes advantage of the 360-degree PanoScreen feature in Pico’s current-generation headset, which allows users to position multiple high-resolution app windows within their physical environment to create a digital workspace.

Users can also collaborate with coworkers, colleagues and friends represented as 3D avatars, while keeping their browsers, notes or other communication tools floating around them in their rooms and offices. The OS supports a large variety of input systems, including controllers, mice and keyboards, without switching models.

The new software development kit supports Kotlin, a popular Android development language, to simplify design for component-based runtime applications. Developers will also be able to quickly prototype with the Pico Spatial Plugin for Android Studio and a new desktop-based Pico Emulator.

Project Swan: A high-end XR headset

The company also unveiled a new Pico flagship headset, Project Swan, its next-generation flagship targeted for global launch in late 2026, which will compete with prosumer and high-end headsets given its teased specifications.

Project Swan features a new generation of MicroLED display with a density exceeding 4,000 PPI, which exceeds the ultra-high resolution of Apple Vision Pro’s Micro-OLED display system. According to the company, it will deliver an average of 40 pixels per degree with a center sweet spot of exceeding 45 PPD for text clarity, making professional workflows much easier. That greatly exceeds the 25 PPD of the Meta Quest 3’s 4K+ Infinite Display.

The headset will house a dual-chip architecture, combining a custom XR silicon chipset for perception and imaging with about 12 milliseconds of latency and a system-on-chip for double the compute and graphics performance of the current XR2 Gen 2 platform.

In the wake of this unveiling, Pico announced a global early access program for experienced users to get their hands on Project Swan and Pico OS 6. The company said it will use feedback from early participants to refine both hardware and software ahead of the official launch. The waitlist for applicants is open today.

Image: Pico Immersive