Sony’s Apple Vision Pro competitor comes with a smart control ring

Sony's new mixed reality headset has a stylus, ring controller, and flip-up visor.

The new headset is launching 2024. (Image: Sony)

At this year’s CES in Las Vegas, Sony has unveiled an intriguing new standalone mixed-reality headset aimed at content creators and professionals. With its flip-up visor design and focus on spatial computing, the as-yet-unnamed headset looks poised to compete with devices like the Apple Vision Pro in business and enterprise settings.

The headset will utilise Sony’s own high-resolution micro OLED displays, delivering a crisp 4K resolution per eye, as well as Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 processor. This should provide plenty of graphical power for handling complex 3D models and simulations smoothly. The flip-up visor allows for easy transition between AR and VR modes, and gives the wearer peripheral vision when flipped up.

While the headset hardware itself comes from Sony, the software side will leverage Siemens’ Xcelerator platform, which features a number of software tools designed for business.

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Sony does already offer the PlayStation VR 2 headset, but this new headset is designed specifically for spatial content, as opposed to the gaming-oriented PlayStation one.

Interestingly, the headset will also support a unique wearable ring controller accessory and stylus-like pointer tool, one for each hand. These will allow for intuitive interaction with virtual 3D objects, gestures, and interfaces. Sony appears to be thinking ahead to future mixed reality interactions compared to hardware like the Apple Vision Pro which currently relies on hand tracking and gestures alone.

Overall, Sony and Siemens’ new collaboration has an intriguing industrial design and some well-thought-out accessories and software to back it up. The headset is planned to launch at some point in 2024, so expect more details and demos as the year goes on.