Wait, Apple Vision Pro doesn’t come in black, does it? Nope, but Play For Dream MR does. And with what some are calling the ‘Android Vision Pro’, owing to its Android-based OS, Play For Dream seems to have turned some heads at CES 2025 this past week.

Initially launched in Asia last year, China-based headset creator Play For Dream had its sights on bringing the heavily Vision Pro-inspired mixed reality headset to the West. Launching a Kickstarter campaign in September, Play For Dream MR went on to garner $2,271,650.00 Hong Kong dollars (~$292,000 USD).

Play For Dream MR has packed in a laundry list of modern XR features, including a Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset running Android 15, dual 3,840 × 3,552 micro-OLED displays (90Hz), eye-tracking, auto IPD adjustment, wired and wireless PC streaming, and also a Quest Pro-inspired rear-mounted battery and Touch-style controllers.

In short, the headset appears to have it all—even Vision Pro’s user interface.

Design inspirations aside, former Quest engineer Amanda Watson got a chance go hands-on with Play For Dream’s MR headset, noting in an X post it was “absolutely the best all around HMD demo I saw on the floor today.”

“It is quite literally an ‘Android Apple Vision Pro’. but the execution was excellent. Great performance, optics, UI and media capture/playback features,” Watson continues, who departed Meta in 2022.

SEE ALSO
'Thrill of the Fight 2' Brings Multiplayer Boxing Action to Quest Today, Now in Early Access

During her time at Meta/Oculus, Watson worked on a number of Quest-related projects, including both the tethered Link and the company’s Wi-Fi streaming tool, Air Link. At one time, she was the sole developer of Air Link for 13 months prior to its release. So when Watson says something is good, it probably is.

“It has USB and wireless PCVR streaming (I tried USB) — this was more [work-in-progress] quality (frame rate and latency) compared to other features, but it’s a relatively recent feature [as I understand it]. The basics like controller motion were nailed down and resolution was solid.”

Image courtesy Play For Dream

Furthermore, Watson reports its Touch-style controllers were “also very good. They said hand tracking exists, but they didn’t demo it.” Notably, the headset’s pancake lenses had “excellent distortion correction,” which Watson says is “the biggest thing to me personally.”

Established in 2020 under the name YVR, Play For Dream has already launched two generations of standalone VR headsets, its YVR 1 and YVR 2, both of which were released in China in 2022.

Play For Dream MR doesn’t have a firm release date or pricing yet, however the company has said it will come in under $2,000. For more, check out Play For Dream’s website for detailed specs and ordering opportunities when they arrive.

Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.

Scott Hayden
Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Rudl Za Vedno

    Watch and learn Meta/Asus/Lenovo/Valve/Samsung… This is what we want. Add display port option to it and you'll have an instant winner here. It's not that hard. Maybe make two versions of it, one with QLED panels for $999 and one with micro OLED for $1500 to widen your market.
    https://media4.giphy.com/media/mUOYDpK3S8X1MTwUC6/giphy-downsized-small.mp4

    • Michael Speth

      HTC Focus Vision also has Display Port. I agree that having display port is a must to offset the garbage mobile processing. However, why spend the extra money on mobile garbage when you can just connect it to a real gaming platform?

      Also, Meta is not in the market for profitting from hardware, it is obvious they (Meta VR) are losing thousands per headset which accumulates to billions lossed per month (this takes into account revenue as well).

      Meta is in the market to capture your data and 1 day enslave you. Their claims to freedom of speech recently are laughable as they are the ones funding the fact checkers.

      • xyzs

        We found our negative energy ViRGiN, guys…
        Super annoying but anti Meta this time.

      • KatteFjerten

        Thousands per headset??

      • Stephen Bard

        The unlinkable Upload article entitled "Meta Quest 3 & Apple Vision Pro Production Costs Estimated By Supply Chain Analyst Firm" has detailed breakdowns of the component costs of the Quest 3 at $430 and the AVP at $1700

        • Michael Speth

          Not possible. Meta loses billions per month and the only way this is possible is if Meta is selling hardware at a massive loss.

          • Sean

            The reason Meta loses billions on XR is because 60% of their spending is towards future AR glasses. Another large percentage is on future VR headsets like Quest. They are not losing much money on Quest hardware. You are confidently wrong.

          • Michael Speth

            "The reason Meta loses billions on XR is because 60% of their spending is towards future AR glasses. Another large percentage is on future VR headsets like Quest."

            You are claiming that developer & engineer salaries are like $4 – $6 billion per month (because meta makes about $2 billion revenue on software sales per month). How many developers and engineering do you BELIEVE are working on future headsets and XR? What do you BELIEVE is the avarage salary for those devs/engineers?

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Its very difficult to tell how much money Meta is losing with Quest by selling it at close to production cost, but we can determine an upper ceiling. By now they may have sold 25mn Quest 1-3. If we assume the average price was USD 350, their total cost would be USD 8.75bn. We know from Meta itself that they spend USD 50+bn at MRL alone over five years, with the total investment into XR more like USD 100bn.

            Even if Meta had given away all 25mn Quest away for free, the loss from hardware would only be 18% of what MRL spent, or 9% of USD 100bn. So at least 82%-91% of the loss would not be directly from Quest hardware sales. And since they didn't actually give away the headsets, but sold them at cost, hardware production will only have a very minor impact.

            That still doesn't allow to estimate the total loss from Quest though, as we don't know how much money they spent on hardware, software and OS development, prototyping, tooling, license cost, exclusive game deals, developer and customer support etc., all cost that would normaly have to be covered by adding a significant margin on top of the production costs to the retail price.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          The anaylsis is valuable, but the cost for the Quest 3 is probably higher. Wellsenn did a teardown to identify all the components and then guessed (providing neither reasoning nor source) that the price of the XR2 Gen 2 SoC would be USD 90 compared to the USD 80 XR2 Gen 1 from their previous Quest 2 breakdown.

          The problem with this assumption is that the price of the matching Snapdragons had risen from USD 85 (SD865 ~ XR2 Gen 1) to USD 160 (SD8 Gen 2 ~ XR2 Gen 2), so USD 75 more, not USD 10. The XR2 Gen 2 uses a different core configuration and process than SD8 Gen 2, so the increase might be lower, but not anywhere near to USD 10 low, putting the Quest 3 production price closer to its USD 499 retail price.

    • Sofian

      This is what people want? A quest 3 with QLED panels at twice the price?

      • Michael Speth

        The price is what these HMDs should be but Meta sells at garbage prices and loses billions per month.

        That means meta is uses you and willing to lose billions on you to drive their destopian agenda

      • marvygarvy408

        They are not QLED. They are using Micro OLED panels that are over 4K each eye. Micro OLED panels are very expensive and hard to manufacture at the moment.

      • STL

        YES!

  • I confirm: this is also my favorite XR demo from CES. Very well executed device

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      How completely unexpected that some company would release a HMD with specs very close to Qualcomm's XR2+ reference design using the same BOE microOLED displays as all the other new HMD. Adapting AVP's UI, but significantly underbidding its USD 3500 retail price (est. AVP build cost USD 1400-1800). And how surprising that it is based on Android, but not AndroidXR, when Google bound AndroidXR to the Google Play Services that aren't available in China.

      Despite the sarcasm, I really welcome this development, and expect a lot more similar releases, with all the benefits competition among numerous manufacturers can bring. Mostly because this happening was sort of written on the wall in huge, burning letters for quite some time now.

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    How completely unexpected that some company would release a HMD with specs very close to Qualcomm's XR2+ reference design using the same BOE microOLED displays as all the other new HMD. Adapting AVP's UI, but significantly underbidding its USD 3500 retail price (est. AVP build cost USD 1400-1800). And how surprising that it is based on Android, but not AndroidXR, when Google bound AndroidXR to the Google Play Services that aren't available in China.

    Despite the sarcasm, I really welcome this development, and expect a lot more similar releases, with all the benefits competition among numerous manufacturers can bring. Mostly because this happening was sort of written on the wall in huge, burning letters for quite some time now.

  • Andrew Jakobs

    however the company has said it will come in under $2,000

    That doesn't bode well for the pricing, it sure shows that the components together are not cheap if even a chinese 'knockoff' can't deliver a headset with these specs for under $1000. So it still shows that the Quest headsets are priced and done with specs that really aren't far from the actual material costs. Which also tells us not to expect a Quest 4 this year or early next year with these kind of specs, but yet another better soc by that time. The Quest 3 is already at its highest price for mainstream appeal, any higher is already moving into the enthousiast category.

    • Rudl Za Vedno

      Valve index sold pretty well with it's price tag of 1079€. I'd say that lots of gamers is willing to pay $999 or a bit more if product is very good and you don't expect to sell tens of millions of units lie Meta wants. But going above that is questionable.

      • Andrew Jakobs

        Valve index was sold as an enthousiast headset, also let's not forget, headset only was $560, so many Vive(pro) users upgraded that way.
        for mainstream $600+ is too much. You see it with the PSVR2 too which was less of a success due to its high price compared to the original PSVR, also started selling more when it was at a fairly high pricecut last holiday.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      TL;DR: microOLED prices are falling, and component costs for the Play for Dream should be below USD 1000, the rest is (reasonable) margin for a niche product selling only in moderate numbers.

      The BOE 4K microOLED were announced two years ago at USD 400 per unit/USD 200 per eye (without lenses) and at one point could be purchased for that at Alibaba, where 2.5k SeeYa microOLEDs similar to those in Bigscreen Beyond are still available for less than USD 250 in single units, meaning they are significantly cheaper for HMD manufacturers buying them in bulk.

      The largest cost factors will be SoC and display, with RAM, flash, lenses and battery each (significantly) cheaper than USD 100. Given that AVP at est. USD 1400-1800 build cost includes Sony microOLEDs for USD 700, a large, expensive R1 signal processor in parallel to the M2 SoC, and USD 130 for the very complex assembly alone, I doubt that building an HMD close to the XR2+ reference platform with BOE microOLED displays will require more than USD 1000 in components. So technically it could be delivered for that price by a company like Meta eating all the extra costs, just not by a small Chinese manufacturers having to recoup all their expenses. I'd nonetheless expect the prices to quickly fall below the USD ~1900 Shiftall, Pimax and Play for Dream now all settled for, once more players start shipping similar HMDs.

      What this means for a 2026 Quest 4 remains to be seen. There is nothing that would make microOLED production fundamentally expensive once processes are established, so prices should fall (quickly). On the other hand the XR2+ is very underpowered for 4K gaming, so Meta may limit a 2026 XR2 Gen 3 Quest 4 to 2.5K or 3K both to reduce cost and to keep it more balanced.

      • kraeuterbutter

        meta can do ist as they did with quest1, quest2 and now also quest3:

        render game graphics with less resolution than the displays actually have
        (also you normaly say: you need more renderresolution than physical display resolution because of distortion profiles)

        so: if they bring us 4k-ish displays: why not..
        the XR2+ should be powerful enough, to power them adequat for "Immersed", Text, very easy games…

        and all other games: the same game as always: render with less resolution than the physical one
        (but: i have already with the Quest3 some games which work good with 3500×3000 render resolution set by game optimizer)

        with 4kish displays SDE should be gone
        even when rendering with lower resolution

        • Andrew Jakobs

          I hardly even see SDE on my Pico4, so upping it to 2.8k or 3k would make it already pretty gone, unless maybe you are really looking for it. But I guess higher resolution displays will probably also slurp some extra power and the current 2-3 hours batterylife is already short, or have a larger battery in the headstrap, like the Pico4 has, but then with a headstrap that's actually replacable.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          The problem is keeping the design balanced/cost. Quest is a budget VR line, with Quest 3/3S designed to stay below USD 500/300, leaving little room for unused extras. And 2026 2.5K microOLED will still be a lot cheaper/better value than 4K ones for a standalone gaming HMD.

          Sure you can run some games at 4K on XR2+, or upscale everything, and the 2.5K Vive Focus 3/Vision still use the same XR2 Gen 1 as Quest 2. But for Quest 3 Meta went with ~30% more pixels, run by a GPU 2.5x as fast. GPU performance rises by ~1/3rd each year, so a 2026 Quest 4 should see a similar 2.5x boost, and moving to 2.5K displays would add ~44% pixel.

          Going for 3552*3840 would add ~200% pixels. Lower render resolutions plus massive upscaling probably won't offer enough gains for gaming to justify the extra cost over 2.5K, at least not without advanced frame reconstruction like FSR/DLSS. The main reason for Meta to nonetheless go for more expensive 3.5K/4K displays would be productivity apps that gain lots of readability from extra pixels while not really taxing the GPU. But for that microOLED prices would have to fall significantly.

  • STL

    At "Kickstarter" detailed information can be found for PLAY FOR DREAM MR.

  • foamreality

    No displayport is a deal breaker. Nearly there though. Nearly.

    • Arno van Wingerde

      That seems a remarkable oversight, given the armies of PCVR users that are screaming for DP… weird! What it require so many resources to implement one?

      • Andrew Jakobs

        It looks like it, as none of tye XR2 based headsets support it. Except the latest HTC using an extra expensive dongle, so that tells me there probably is something fishy going on, like nit really DP, but some image enhancer to get the USB streaming 'better'. Or it is because that would require an extra chip on the headset which would make it more expensive, for the few people actually using it, as most will just use it wirelessly.
        personally I never tested my Pico 4 wireless as I thought my old computer with an RTX2060super and Core i7 4770 connected through wire to my old wifi 5 router would not be able to handle a decent image, untill out of curiosity, in preparation for building myself a brand new gaming PC with new wifi7 router, I tried it yesterday, and to my big surprise, even without having tweaked anything yet, the image was smooth and artifact free with the couple if games, like Valve's test lab, I tested. It looked better and artifact free as my HTC Vive Pro with wireless module.
        so people bitching they need DP to have good image are just talking nonsense, especially people who already have the highend GPU's etc.
        DP is no necessity, I'd rather they spend the extra money on better lenses, wider FOV or better en-/decoders.

        • mirak

          can't see why DP would cost so much

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            Mostly because the XR2+ cannot handle DP input itself, so you need to add another USB-C or DP port plus decoder that needs to be connected to the displays in parallel to the SoC, basically adding a second display unit to the HMD similar to what the Pico Neo 3 Link did.

            I doubt this would be more than USD 25 in components, but since this option isn't already covered by the Qualcomm XR2+ reference platform, integrating it might add considerable hardware development costs to what will be low volume products, causing manufacturers to either exclude the function or charge significantly more than the pure component costs for it.

          • mirak

            Have you seen the price of the DP cable for the Vive Focus Vision ?
            It seems HTC solved the price issue by making the users of this port pay for the others xD

  • I think they mean a Quest knock-off. That Apple garbage is a Quest knock-off too… just without controls, games, or any real reason to own one.

  • Herbert Werters

    The headband over the top is missing here as with the AVP. The fact that the battery is at the back is a step forward, but unfortunately that's not enough. Try it out with the Pico 4/Ultra. Unfortunately, it still slips over time. We have gravity here on this planet.