Big Screen Beyond 2 launches at 107 grams, challenging Apple Vision Pro on weight
Mar 21, 2025
Key Points
- BigScreen launches the Beyond 2 at 107 grams and $990, directly countering Apple Vision Pro's weight problem, the top consumer complaint about Apple's headset.
- The PC-tethered headset ships with 116-degree field of view, eye tracking, and adjustable IPD, hitting the 100-gram form factor John Carmack identified as critical for consumer VR adoption.
- Beyond 2 trades standalone portability for optical fidelity and clarity, positioning itself as a prosumer device for VR Chat and racing sims rather than a spatial computing platform.
Summary
BigScreen launched the Beyond 2, a PC-tethered VR headset weighing 107 grams, at $990 with shipping in under a month. The device directly addresses the top consumer complaint about Apple Vision Pro: weight.
The Beyond 2 ships with a 116-degree field of view, edge-to-edge clarity, eye tracking, adjustable interpupillary distance (IPD) so users can share the headset, improved optics, and reduced lens glare. The first-generation Beyond required custom 3D-printed face molds; the new version drops that constraint with adjustable IPD. Pre-orders for the Beyond 2 doubled the prior version's sales.
Weight as competitive lever
An iPhone SE weighs 144 grams. John Carmack, who worked on Meta's headsets, previously argued that consumer VR adoption hinges on hitting around 100 grams and a $100 price point. BigScreen appears to chase that formula. Palmer Luckey echoed support for the approach, noting the Beyond 2 costs $990 and weighs one-fifteenth of the Oculus Quest Pro, describing it as a path to "matrix level immersion."
Trade-offs baked in
The Beyond 2 requires a tethered PC or external compute box to operate. It has no onboard processing. That positions it as a prosumer or developer device rather than a standalone consumer product. The headset targets VR Chat, racing sims, and other games where immersion and clarity matter more than portability.
Strategic positioning
Steve Jobs famously said there was no such thing as headphones for video. One observer suggested Apple should have built something closer to BigScreen's approach: lightweight goggles optimized for content viewing that fit into the Apple ecosystem, rather than a computing platform. That framing highlights a product philosophy split. BigScreen prioritizes optical fidelity and form factor lightness. Apple bet on computational power and spatial computing features.