Here comes another contender in the Vision Pro imitation game, and this one even includes “Vision” in its name.
You might not be overly familiar with Vivo, but this Chinese company has carved a niche for itself with its practical, mid-range smartphones. They’re consistently among the top five smartphone makers in terms of market share.
At the Boao Forum for Asia, which took place today in China’s Hainan Province, Vivo introduced us to its first foray into the XR market with the debut of Vivo Vision.
According to Vivo’s press release, this move is part of a broader strategy to expand into both robotics and XR technologies. They described the Vivo Vision as “a significant milestone in Vivo’s exploration of mixed reality technology.”
While no detailed specs have been disclosed yet, we did get a glimpse of the Vivo Vision XR headset at the forum. It’s clear that Vivo has taken some design inspiration from Apple’s Vision Pro. This includes the distinctive head strap, the digital crown button, and the magnetically attached external battery.
Vivo typically equips its smartphones with modified versions of Android. Globally, they use Funtouch OS, while the Chinese market gets the Origin OS. It’s feasible that Vivo might try something similar with the anticipated Android XR OS from Google. This software is reportedly launching with Samsung’s mixed reality project, ‘Project Moohan’, expected to hit the market later this year, though that’s currently all speculation.
It’s noteworthy that Chinese manufacturers are increasingly rolling out devices resembling the Vision Pro. Earlier this year at CES 2025, Play for Dream caught a lot of attention with their MR headset. A former Quest engineer, Amanda Watson, even praised it as “absolutely the best all around HMD demo I saw on the floor today.”
