Apple's MR headset didn't sell well. Is vivo also reluctant to take too many risks?

A new player has entered the XR race, where many major companies have faced setbacks.

Recently, vivo officially launched its first MR (Mixed Reality) headset, the vivo Vision Exploration Edition, becoming the first domestic mobile phone manufacturer to enter this race.

Image source: vivo official website

The so - called mixed reality combines virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). After users put on the MR headset, they can not only see interfaces, applications, pictures, and videos in the virtual world, but also see people and objects in the real world through the lenses. At the same time, they can control the applications in the virtual interface through eye movements, gestures, etc.

For a smartphone manufacturer to make an MR headset, it needs to use solid technology to solve the interaction transformation from a two - dimensional plane to a three - dimensional space. This is not a simple proposition.

Since MR headsets need to integrate multiple sensors, be equipped with higher - performance chips, and complete complex technologies such as three - dimensional modeling, image processing, and human - machine interaction, the cost of MR headset products is high, so the pricing is also high, and commercialization is difficult.

Previously, Apple "hit a wall" with its MR headset. The Vision Pro failed to become a best - seller due to its lack of practicality and high price.

vivo has learned from this lesson, avoiding many pain points exposed by Apple. It not only designed the product to be lighter, but also didn't rush to ask consumers to pay, not wanting to leave consumers with the impression of "heavy and expensive".

Currently, judging from the information conveyed by vivo, it doesn't seem to have the idea of mass - producing the vivo Vision Exploration Edition, and some key product information has not been disclosed. It is quite cautious. Perhaps the sales situation of the predecessors has also made vivo less willing to take risks.

However, if vivo wants to explore a second growth curve, it obviously can't just stay at the storytelling stage. Eventually, it still needs to think about how to get consumers to pay.

Whether it's the MR headset or the development of household robots, vivo has been actively looking for a second growth curve.

When it's difficult to find new growth in the mobile phone business, it's reasonable for vivo to seek new breakthroughs and target fields with higher technical requirements.

However, both of these businesses require high investment and have late commercial returns. How to deal with the pressure brought by large - scale investment may be the biggest challenge vivo will face next.

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the vivo Vision Exploration Edition?

As long as a company wants to enter the smart wearable device market, the problem it needs to solve can be simplified into one sentence: The product should allow people to live a normal life while wearing it. This is the case for the smart glasses market, which is currently in the spotlight, and it's also the case for the MR headset field that vivo has now entered.

But this sounds easy, yet it's difficult to achieve.

The phrase "more suitable for daily use" includes many requirements such as being lighter, having clearer and more comfortable displays, and smoother eye tracking and gesture control. The high requirements of MR headsets for display and control mean that the products need to rely on a large number of high - tech accessories, which is naturally in conflict with the market's demand for lighter products.

For manufacturers, it takes time to turn the concept of an MR headset into a reality. However, consumers often don't give high - priced products many opportunities to make mistakes. As long as the product is not good enough or beyond their consumption ability, they won't buy it.

Even Apple, with its strong R & D capabilities, failed to develop an MR headset product at the level of the iPhone. Even at the Vision Pro press conference, many people who had experienced it said they saw Apple's technological breakthroughs, but the description of "big and heavy" blocked the product's sales.

According to Bloomberg, by the end of 2024, the sales volume of Apple's Vision Pro was less than 500,000 units, falling short of Apple's expectations.

Learning from Apple's experience, vivo's current strategy is to highlight the user experience of this MR headset product. On the one hand, it should be able to achieve the basic functions of an MR headset, and on the other hand, it should avoid the market's evaluation of "heavy and expensive".

The vivo Vision official website shows that the product is equipped with the second - generation Snapdragon XR2+ platform, uses a Micro - OLED binocular 8K high - definition screen, and is equipped with the OriginOS Vision system, with a maximum pixel count of 27.28 million.

In terms of functions such as eye tracking and gesture recognition, vivo Vision can achieve high - precision eye movement tracking of 1.5°, micro - gesture recognition with 26 degrees of freedom, and a vertical recognition range of 175 degrees.

Image source: vivo official website

According to Jiemian News, the vivo Vision Exploration Edition has almost no learning curve: eye movement acts as the cursor, pinching two fingers confirms the operation, and there are no external device constraints. First - time users can start using it in just 5 seconds.

In response to the lack of content ecosystem in MR headsets, vivo has also made efforts. For example, vivo Vision can achieve hardware - level linkage from smartphones to MR headsets, and the spatial images of vivo X100 Ultra and vivo X200 Ultra can be seamlessly transmitted, with instant synchronization upon shooting.

In addition to the "show - off" features, vivo has especially worked hard on weight reduction.

Compared with Apple's Vision Pro, which has 12 cameras and 5 sensors and is equipped with dual chips, vivo Vision has 8 cameras and uses a single - chip platform.

Moreover, vivo abandoned the dual - screen design of Apple's Vision Pro, removing the outer screen with low practicality. According to relevant sources, just removing this part can reduce the weight by nearly 100 grams.

In terms of the middle - frame material, vivo chose a lighter magnesium - alloy material and also adopted an integrated design of the middle - frame fan to reduce the overall weight of the product from a structural perspective.

Therefore, the most common evaluation of vivo Vision in the market is that it is light. Its total weight is 398 grams, one - third lighter than Apple's Vision Pro, which weighs between 600 and 650 grams.

In addition, vivo also considered the facial features of Chinese people and ergonomic factors in terms of wearing comfort, solving the problems of face pressure, stuffiness, and easy shaking of the device.

Image source: vivo official website

vivo's approach of making high - tech products from a practical perspective is somewhat similar to Meta's popular AI glasses.

However, if the product only becomes lighter in terms of hardware configuration and material, its sense of technology and functionality may be compromised.

vivo may also be aware that even if the vivo Vision looks lighter and more practical, it may not achieve the same high market acceptance as Meta's AI glasses. Therefore, in terms of the pricing and launch strategy of the MR headset product, vivo chose a more conservative approach: not announcing the sales time and pricing, and only opening offline reservation experiences.

Recently, more and more users who have experienced vivo Vision have given their feedback.

Since vivo Vision has not announced parameters such as the field of view, refresh rate, and sensor configuration, most users' feedback also focuses on these unannounced aspects.

Some users said that the battery life of vivo Vision's immersive viewing mode is about 2.5 hours, and it needs an external battery to supplement power, which affects the convenience of use. Some users also said that the field of view of vivo Vision is relatively narrow, resulting in insufficient immersion.

In addition, the lack of a content ecosystem is also a shortcoming of vivo Vision. Some users said that currently, the content in the vivo Vision app store mainly consists of spatial photo albums, simple games (such as "Table Drum Master"), and video players, lacking professional software or killer apps.

Some users also reported that although the body is light, there will still be indentations on the face after wearing it for a long time; there are occasional delays in gesture recognition and eye tracking, and the fluency is not good, etc.

It can be seen that there is still much room for improvement in vivo's product. Perhaps this is also the reason why it doesn't dare to directly set a price and start sales. It's not easy to get domestic consumers to accept MR headsets. Behind the cautious attitude, vivo may also need more time to explore.

2. Why does vivo want to tackle the "tough nut" of MR headsets?

In the current era of rapid development of AI technology, many concepts of artificial intelligence hardware products may gradually become a reality under technological iteration.

Under such a trend, the MR technology, which has experienced ups and downs, has been brought up again.

As a mobile phone manufacturer, vivo has the factors necessary for MR headset product R & D in terms of technology, content ecosystem, and supply chain.

For example, in aspects such as chip optimization, low - power design, and high - definition display, vivo has accumulated relatively rich technical experience. Coupled with years of accumulation in the supply chain, it has also established close cooperative relationships with upstream suppliers of display, optics, acoustics, etc.

It is understood that vivo started to layout the MR race in 2021 and established a special R & D team. Therefore, overall, vivo's entry into the MR headset industry is not entirely a hasty move, and the launch of vivo Vision is not just following Apple's lead.

Image source: vivo official website

However, the market potential and the company's technical foundation are not the only factors for vivo to choose to layout the MR headset race. vivo also attaches great importance to the technical difficulties to be overcome in the R & D process of MR headsets, which can promote the R & D of household robots.

From the current situation of the intelligent robot market, most robots that can achieve commercialization are applied in industrial scenarios and can only complete work and actions through fixed operation processes, unable to handle more complex and sudden scenarios.

There are also technical problems to be solved in the R & D of embodied intelligent robots.

Chen Xiangyu, an expert in the robot field and the founder of IO - Al.tech, said that current robots face two pain points. On the one hand, robots don't have as rich training data as large AI models. On the other hand, most robots currently need to be operated by a person with a remote control. However, people wearing MR can provide a lot of data for robots, and MR is also a very good interactive device for robot control.

Therefore, the MR headset, which is so highly correlated with robots, has become the key point for vivo's recent accelerated layout.

According to Hu Baishan, the executive vice - president and chief operating officer of vivo, with the high - precision scanning and modeling ability of MR for the environment, it can help robots establish millimeter - level spatial modeling ability for home scenarios; with the accurate recognition of human facial expressions and semantics by MR, it can also enable robots to better understand humans; and the multi - task processing and behavior - learning ability accumulated by MR can also help household robots cope with complex environments and achieve the generalization and transfer of capabilities.

Image source: vivo official website

Although the ideal is beautiful, it cannot be denied that the MR headset is a very difficult race to break into.

Around 2020, under the home - entertainment dividend brought by the pandemic, the sales volume of Meta's Quest series of headset products once exceeded 10 million.

However, since the interaction experience of Meta Quest at that time was still not good enough and the content ecosystem did not keep up, the growth of the shipment volume began to slow down.

Subsequently, Apple's Vision Pro heated up this race again. At that time, the product triggered a rush among users to buy, and the highest price on the second - hand platform once soared to 90,000 yuan per unit, with an official starting price of 29,999 yuan.

But soon, the market's enthusiasm gradually faded due to reasons such as the product being too heavy for daily use, high price, and lack of ecosystem. Currently, Apple has stopped the production of this version of the product and the R & D of the second - generation product.

That is to say, international giants like Meta and Apple have failed to create another "iPhone moment" in the MR headset race.

Looking at other mobile phone companies, most of them have set their transformation directions on lighter and more commercially viable AI and AR glasses, which also confirms that the technical difficulty of MR headsets is extremely high, and it takes a lot of cost to really do it well.

Even vivo added the "Exploration Edition" after vivo Vision and chose to set up a production line in its own factory.

Coupled with not announcing the launch time and price, all these mean that vivo is not ready to mass - produce vivo Vision on a large scale. Just as vivo once predicted that the "ideal household robot" would be officially launched 10 years later, the MR headset is also a distant dream for vivo.

It's just that whether it's making MR headsets or household robots, for vivo, it will be "a beautiful story but a harsh reality" for a long time. However, in the face of the fierce competition in the mobile phone field, vivo's new exploration really needs to be accelerated.

3. Vivo, struggling in the smartphone market, is desperately looking for a second growth curve

In recent years, the smartphone market has become a highly competitive "red ocean".

Data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology shows that from January to June 2025, the domestic mobile phone shipment volume was 141 million units, a year - on - year decrease of 3.9%. Among them, the shipment volume of 5G mobile phones was 121 million units, a year - on - year decrease of 3.0%, accounting for 85.5% of the total mobile phone shipment volume during the same period.

However, at the same time, the number of newly launched mobile phone models is increasing. The above report shows that from January to June 2025, 238 new mobile phone models were launched in the domestic market, a year - on - year increase of 10.2%. Among them, 103 were 5G mobile phones, a year - on - year decrease of 14.2%, accounting for 43.3% of