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Vivo's $1,400 Apple Vision Pro Clone Launches Across China

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Chinese smartphone maker Vivo on Thursday unveiled its first mixed reality headset, the "Vivo Vision," and the photocopiers in Dongguan appear to have been working overtime.

MR-Glasses-vivo-vision.jpeg

The device "launched" as an in-store experience across mainland China today, featuring design elements that clearly ape Apple's Vision Pro. It's got a curved glass front visor, downward-pointing cameras, removable fabric light seals in four sizes, eight foam padding options, a knitted rear strap, and an aluminum external battery pack connected via a braided cable. The Vivo Vision "Explorer Edition" even offers support for 1.5-degree eye tracking and 26 degrees depth of field for gesture-based navigation.

To its credit, Vivo's clone has some competitive specifications. The dual 8K micro-LED displays provide 3,840 × 3,552 pixels per eye – slightly higher than the Vision Pro's resolution – and offers 180-degree panoramic field of view. At 398 grams, it's significantly lighter than Apple's 650-gram device. Vivo also claims its headset is 26 percent smaller than the "industry average."

As for software, the headset runs on OriginOS Vision, Vivo's in-house mixed reality operating system, which is said to offer ultra-low latency of just 13ms. As you'd expect, it supports recording 3D videos, spatial photos, and spatial audio. Users can also immerse themselves in a 120-inch cinema screen.

Pricing is expected at around 10,000 yuan (roughly $1,395), which is well below Apple's Vision Pro $3,499 starting price. Pre-orders are now open for the device, although Vivo has yet to confirm availability details, giving Apple plenty of time to consider its legal options.

Joking aside, this isn't the first Chinese Apple knock-off that we've seen by a long stretch, plus there's no indication that Vivo's headset is coming to international markets beyond China. The Vision Pro has sold poorly anyway, so the impact on Apple's bottom line is likely to be minimal.


Apple is currently working on a next-generation version of the Vision Pro with an M5 chip, based on code discovered by MacRumors. The refreshed Vision Pro isn't expected to feature any design changes or hardware updates aside from the new chip, but it could get a new strap that will make it more comfortable to wear for longer periods of time. The Vision Pro 2 with M5 chip could launch as soon as late 2025.

Article Link: Vivo's $1,400 Apple Vision Pro Clone Launches Across China
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/08/21/vivo-vision-headset-chinese-apple-imitation/
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Le0M said:
Better specs, yet one third of Apple Vision Pro's price.
What am I missing?
Click to expand...
That they also have the same latency for pass-through, which is pretty crazy. Both of them are 11-13ms. Remember Apple going on and on about all the custom silicone to get there? I wonder if the "Apple Vision Pro 2" will get under 7ms, which is where motion sickness should disappear.
 
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MacRumors said:



Apple is currently working on a next-generation version of the Vision Pro with an M5 chip, based on code discovered by MacRumors. The refreshed Vision Pro isn't expected to feature any design changes or hardware updates aside from the new chip, but it could get a new strap that will make it more comfortable to wear for longer periods of time. The Vision Pro 2 with M5 chip could launch as soon as late 2025.
Click to expand...

I will be shocked if they actually ship it. The Vision Pro is a terrible product, and as such has been an abject failure. Even at it's absurd price point, the $3,500 iPad for your face has generated about 1 day's worth of Apple's revenue. And in 18 months since its release, there is no successor, no cheaper model, hardly any apps, and hardly any content.

None of which is a surprise at all. Vision Pro stands alone in Apple's lineup as the only piece of objectionable hardware they sell. No one complains about holding a phone in order to use one. No one complains about wearing a watch in order to use one. No one complains about wearing earbuds in order to use them. But absolutely no one wants to wear a heavy, wall-tethered, nausea-inducing, world-isolating headset. No one. It is something that a few tolerate in order to get access to the software. And the software is what it was all about. It is well known that Vision Pro hardware was never meant to be a shipping product. It was built to demo the software. The intended hardware was still years away, and Tim Cook was not willing to wait. The eve of its launch had engineers crying to the press that it shouldn't be released. When else have you ever seen that?

I very much look forward to what Apple will do in the future with spatial computing via normal glasses with real lenses. They can be a game changer product. An everyday product. But the Vision Pro is not that, and can barely even be labeled as a stepping stone. If anything, I worry about the future of spatial as Apple does not double down on failed products.
 
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attohs said:
That they also have the same latency for pass-through, which is pretty crazy. Both of them are 11-13ms. Remember Apple going on and on about all the custom silicone to get there? I wonder if the "Apple Vision Pro 2" will get under 7ms, which is where motion sickness should disappear.
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Video passthrough is a joke, at any latency. Your eyes have 0 latency (well, from eyes to brain is a different story). No product should attempt to mimic vision with video. This entire concept needs to be shelved until we can do spatial computing projected into your environment with AR.
 
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GioGiusi said:
I will be shocked if they actually ship it. The Vision Pro is a terrible product, and as such has been an abject failure. Even at it's absurd price point, the $3,500 iPad for your face has generated about 1 day's worth of Apple's revenue. And in 18 months since its release, there is no successor, no cheaper model, hardly any apps, and hardly any content.

None of which is a surprise at all. Vision Pro stands alone in Apple's lineup as the only piece of objectionable hardware they sell. No one complains about holding a phone in order to use one. No one complains about wearing a watch in order to use one. No one complains about wearing earbuds in order to use them. But absolutely no one wants to wear a heavy, wall-tethered, nausea-inducing, world-isolating headset. No one. It is something that a few tolerate in order to get access to the software. And the software is what it was all about. It is well known that Vision Pro hardware was never meant to be a shipping product. It was built to demo the software. The intended hardware was still years away, and Tim Cook was not willing to wait. The eve of its launch had engineers crying to the press that it shouldn't be released. When else have you ever seen that?

I very much look forward to what Apple will do in the future with spatial computing via normal glasses with real lenses. They can be a game changer product. And everyday product. But the Vision Pro is not that, and can barely even be labeled as a stepping stone. If anything, I worry about the future of spatial as Apple does not double down on failed products.
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Terrible product, or not there were hundreds of thousands of people that were willing to buy one at $3,500. It's a small market, but I'm guessing there would have been a few million more that would have picked one up at $1,500. I can also see this selling as many in China as Vision Pro has sold around the world. Whether it's profitable or not is a different question...
 
GioGiusi said:
That's about what Vision Pro costs to make. So in classic Apple fashion, it is sold for more than twice as much.
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What's your source for the cost for Apple to make the AVP? You're saying Apple's markup on the AVP is >100%? That would be a margin of >60%. How are they so high on the AVP when Apple's overall hardware gross margins are <40%, including products with already sunk research and development costs?
 
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Le0M said:
Better specs, yet one third of Apple Vision Pro's price.
What am I missing?
Click to expand...
Because copying something requires little investment in research and development. It’s no different than every other Chinese copy of an American product. Go into business spending millions of dollars developing a product and then have some Chinese clone come out and you’ll figure out what you’re missing.

Unfortunately, this is how China wins in technology over the US. While Apple is busy fighting a silly patent lawsuit over a blood oxygen sensor, the Chinese are straight up copying their products without any problem.
 
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There are three main goals of tourism
1. Get away from the weather at home (Florida, Mexico)
2. Do something you can’t do at home (ski, fish, camp, etc)
3. See more of the world, see something you haven’t seen

As more people have the financial means to travel, there will be ever greater demand. And while you can build a new luxury resort, you cannot build a new Saint Peter's Basilica, Eiffel Tower, or London Bridge, let alone a new Rome, Paris, or London.

This means that those places are ever more crowded with people. Tourism is awesome…except for all the other people. Consequently, virtual travel is going to have to take the place of some portion of the destination travel.

I can go to a beach resort in February and not really care which country I'm in as long as the beach is clean, the sun is hot, and the fruity drinks are cold. And obviously, if I want to ski or fish, I’ll have to find a place to do that.

But there are HUNDREDS of places I’d like to visit and experience, just to see more of the world. And watching a Blu-Ray on a 75 inch screen just doesn’t do it for me.

Apple Vision Pro (with an app like ExplorePOV) gives me 80% of that experience for pennies on the dollar. AVP is the greatest ROI consumable I own - simply because I can wear the thing for 15 minutes at a time, travel across the world, and give my brain an experience that I simply don’t have the time or budget to have.

The fact that there's competition is a good thing.

The AVP is NOT a flop. Its sales aren't "poor" as the article states. It is a prototype that I can purchase a few years early. WORTH....EVERY...DIME!
 
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neuropsychguy said:
What's your source for the cost for Apple to make the AVP? You're saying Apple's gross margins on the AVP are >100%?
Click to expand...
So many people think the cost of materials is the base for the price of a product. It’s unfortunate people don’t have any experience with actually making a product so they can understand how this works. The plastic in an OtterBox is worth less than $1 but it sells for $70
 
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