/ ANNIVERSARY · 2016 → 2026

10 years of Bigscreen

From pioneering the social VR experience to the world’s smallest headset.

/ Since launch
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01Origin April 2016

Bigscreen Beta
launches on Steam.

A free VR app that put your entire PC desktop, and your friends, inside virtual reality.

Bigscreen launched on the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive as the first social desktop in VR. From inside a headset, users could spawn unlimited virtual screens, share their monitor with friends across the world, watch movies together, and play PC games on wall-sized displays. Within minutes of going live, more than a hundred concurrent users joined. In the first 24 hours, they spent 35 cumulative days inside virtual living rooms and theaters, sharing screens, working, watching, and chatting together.

Bigscreen Beta on the Steam store, April 28 2016
01APRIL 28, 2016 · LIVE ON STEAM
FIG. 01a · Store page
Playing Rocket League in Bigscreen virtual living room
01APRIL 2016 · The VR LAN party is born
FIG. 01b · Living room
Early Bigscreen avatars working together in VR
02OCTOBER 2017 · Series A
FIG. 02 · Workbench
02Funding February & October 2017

Bigscreen raises
Series A funding.

Fuel for the vision.

With $14M raised in less than a year, we proved that VR’s killer app is a place, not just a game. This support allowed us to scale the Bigscreen platform and start designing the hardware of the future.

$3M
Seed · 02.2017
$11M
Series A · 10.2017
Andreessen Horowitz True Ventures
Bigscreen team on a Zoom call, distributed across cities and time zones
FIG. 03 · SNAPSHOT FROM ONE OF OUR TEAM CALLS IN 2018
LIVE · 00:00 UTC
Los AngelesUTC−8
TorontoUTC−5
Buenos AiresUTC−3
LondonUTC+0
AmsterdamUTC+1
HelsinkiUTC+2
AucklandUTC+12
/ CHAPTER 03 · REMOTE FROM DAY ONE

A dozen cities. No office.

03Remote team 2017 → 2019

A small team,
all in.

Designers, engineers, and operators from a dozen countries. One discord server. No office.

Bigscreen is remote from day one. Distributed before remote was a phrase. Mornings overlap across time zones. Pull requests follow the sun. Once or twice a year the whole company gathers for a retreat. A rented house in Park City or Lisbon, whiteboards on hotel walls, prototypes passed across the dinner table. The rest of the year, the company is a Discord workspace and a shared sense of mission.

Bigscreen team gathered together
Retreat · 2019
Bigscreen team in Lisbon
Lisbon · 2018
Golden Gate
SF · 2019
California coast
Coast · 2019
Team dinner
Dinner · 2019
VR session
Prototype
Park City
Park City · 2020
Late night VR
Late night · 2019
04The platform 2017 → 2019

Watch. Play.
Hang out.

Bigscreen isn't an app. It's a platform that kept growing.

Cinemas, lounges, living rooms shipped every quarter: mid-century, sci-fi, movie palaces. Bigscreen TV brought always-on channels you could leave running in the background. Games filled the lobbies: VR LAN parties, board games on virtual coffee tables, Rocket League on a big cinema screen. Public rooms turned strangers into regulars; private ones reunited friends across continents. Live events drew thousands at a time. Power users spent twenty to thirty hours a week here. Not as escape, as routine.

Bigscreen avatars co-working in VR
Co-working
Bigscreen virtual living room watch party
Watch party
Watching YouTube in Bigscreen with avatars
Multi-screen
Bigscreen avatars streaming YouTube together
Streaming YouTube
/ CHAPTER 05 · 2019 → 2020

Lights down.
Curtain up.

Bigscreen virtual cinema theater
A Cinema
Bigscreen sci-fi cinema environment
B Sci-fi room
Bigscreen cinema lobby
C Lobby
052019 → 2020 · BIGSCREEN CINEMA FIG. 05 · Three rooms
05Cinema 2019 → 2020

Real movies.
In a real theater.
That doesn't exist.

Bigscreen Cinema was the first to bring legal, first-run Hollywood movies into VR. We partnered with major studios like Paramount and Funimation to create a shared social experience on a scale impossible in the real world.

Experience films on a scale that physical architecture simply cannot match. By combining synchronized playback with immersive spatial audio and real-time social presence, we turned a solitary activity into a global event. Whether joining a public premiere with hundreds of fans or hosting a private screening for friends, it wasn’t just about watching a movie, it was about the feeling of actually being there together.

/ CINEMA LAUNCH PARTNERS
Pictures · First studio
Anime catalogue

But…

Nobody was building the VR headset we believed should exist.

# bigscreen-team-discord-chat
Darshan 10/11/2019 23:19

update: let's make our own VR headset

Chris 10/11/2019 23:20

I'm in, lets make the best hardware in the world!!

Max 10/11/2019 23:21
Philip joined the chat..

/ Close reconstruction of a real Bigscreen Discord conversation. A few weeks after this post, we actually started working on hardware.

06Hardware 2020

The decision.

Every existing VR headset is too heavy, too bulky, and too compromised.

In 2020, while the VR market was heavily focused on standalone headsets like the Quest, the team makes a private decision to build what doesn’t exist. The technology is there, micro-OLEDs and pancake optics, but nobody has combined them with the discipline of a watchmaker. For two years, we work in secret to shrink every internal component. The mission is to make the hardware so small and light that it effectively disappears. The product has no name yet. The deadline is “when it’s right.”

The Bighouse: empty warehouse before fit-out
062020 FIG. 06 · Our factory in LA
07Prototypes 2021 → 2022

From breadboard
to body.

Humble beginnings. Eighteen months inside a secret R&D office, the team’s hardware lab in LA.

Improvised mockups. 3D-printed shells with exposed boards. A network of ideas built out one part at a time. Custom optics machined and rejected and machined again. Each prototype answers one question and surfaces three more.

Temporary R&D office at the Bighouse
Temporary R&D office
First boards on the bench
First boards
Factory visit during early manufacturing
Factory visit
Side-by-side prototype comparison
Comparison
Tracking flex circuit
Tracking flex
Optics iterations on the bench
Optics iterations
Early prototype of the Beyond
Early prototype of the Beyond
08R&D 2022

Two breakthroughs.
One headset.

Beyond exists because we made two non-obvious engineering choices in 2022.

01
Beyond prototype shown alongside other VR hardware for size comparison

Obsessive focus on comfort,
weight and size.

In 2022, the goal was to kill the bulk. Traditional VR was heavy because it relied on generic mechanical parts to fit a wide range of people. We chose a different path: shrinking the internal footprint using dual 2.5K micro-OLED panels and pancake optics. Every millimeter of the shell and every internal component was scrutinized to reach a weight of just 107g. This was hardware designed not just to be worn, but to disappear.

02
Custom-fit silicone face cushion for the Beyond headset

Built to the shape
of your face.

To achieve this tiny form factor, we replaced heavy adjustment knobs and bulky foam with a personalized silicone interface. By using a 3D face scan, we could craft a headset tailored to the individual's bone structure. In our Los Angeles factory, these scans are converted into unique CNC paths to mold a custom cushion for one human only. This wasn’t just a comfort feature; it was the engineering breakthrough that allowed for a perfect light seal and a weightless experience that the industry had never seen before.

09Testing 2022 → 2023

Hundreds of heads.
Thousands of hours.

Before Beyond shipped, it was worn. By engineers, by partners, by hand-picked early testers.

Every cushion molded to a real face. Every fit checked. Every complaint listened to. The headset that launched in February 2023 had already been through hundreds of fittings.

Bigscreen Beyond.

The world's smallest VR headset.

A software company, daring to take on the giants of VR hardware. Bigscreen Beyond caught the industry off guard: dual 1-inch micro-OLED displays at 2560×2560 per eye, custom pancake optics, SteamVR tracking. Tethered to a PC, custom-fit to the user's face, priced at $999. Within 48 hours, the reveal trailer crossed a million views.

11Reception Feb → Mar 2023

A million views.
A wall of headlines.

The press picked it up the same day. Reviewers had hands on it within weeks.

From The Verge to Tom's Hardware to Linus Tech Tips, the message was the same: this thing is real, this thing is small, and nothing else in PC VR feels like it.

/ Press & reviewers · tap a card
12Iteration 2024

Beyond 2.
Every dimension
pushed.

Pushing the limits of what a custom VR headset can do.

Through 2024, our lab focused entirely on upgrading the core technology. We engineered next-generation pancake optics to deliver a wider field of view and significantly improved visual clarity. We integrated advanced hardware features like Eyetracking and adjustable IPD, all while managing to reduce the overall weight of the shell. It was a year of strict refinement, turning every piece of user feedback into hardware breakthroughs.

12bThe team 2024

The team grew.

Engineers, optical specialists, manufacturing leads, joining from hardware companies across the US and Europe to build something unreasonable.

By the end of 2024 the team had doubled. Twice the bench depth. Same obsessive standards. The factory grew with it, meaning new lines, faster cycle times, and tighter tolerances on every part.

All-hands · 2024
12.aAll-hands
Team dinner · 2024
12.bTogether
Full team · 2025
12.cFull team

This is Beyond 2

Bigscreen Beyond 2 — purple edition
A Shell detail
Bigscreen Beyond 2 — worn
B Beyond 2
Bigscreen Beyond 2 — colour editions
C Colour editions
13MARCH 2025 · BEYOND 2 FIG. 13 · Launch

March 2025. The same obsessive engineering, two years of iteration, and one of the most anticipated launches in PC VR history. Same form factor everyone fell for, with a wider field of view, lighter shell, and next-gen optics.

Watch the launch film ↗
/ Launch day · March 2025

On launch day, Beyond 2 sold as many headsets as Beyond 1 did in its entire first quarter.

Bigger than ever.

Thousands of headsets in thousands of homes, on every continent.

And we’re happy with the results you’ve shared.

A wave of believers

The Bigscreen team, 2026
May 2026

Ten years ago we started Bigscreen with one idea: what if you could virtually hang out with people you care about, really hang out, not just a chat window, even when you’re thousands of miles apart.

We did not know then that this path would lead us to building the world’s smallest VR headset. We only knew that the experience was worth obsessing over.

Today, the horizon of virtual reality stretches farther than ever. Having mastered both hardware and software, we are uniquely positioned to erase the line between them entirely. We have watched this technology spark to life in profound, unforgettable ways.

Now, our mission is to deepen those core moments while pushing past current boundaries, expanding into spaces yet unimagined.

Every face scan. Every firmware update. Every call from the factory floor at 3 a.m. The team in this photo is the reason any of it happened.

The next ten start now, and we are excited for it.

Philip Brandon Darshan David Chan David M David P Hojae Ira Jack D Jeff Kshama Leon Max B Max D Nate Nate Tye Ville Worth Zack
The Bigscreen Team  ·  2026
09Reveal February 13, 2023

The world's smallest
VR headset.

127 grams. Less than an inch thick. Six times lighter than the headsets it competes with.

Dual 1-inch micro-OLED displays at 2560×2560 per eye. Custom pancake optics. SteamVR tracking. Tethered to a PC, custom-fit to the user's face, priced at $999. The reveal trailer hits a million views in 48 hours.

10The press 2023

Five years
ahead.

Tested. LinusTechTips. Optimum. The Verge. Road to VR. Forbes. They show up. They put it on. They don't take it off.

The reviews don't compare Beyond to other headsets. They compare it to a sci-fi prop that shouldn't exist yet. Coverage that money cannot buy, written by people who buy hardware for a living.

LinusTechTips
YouTube · 2.4M views
Tested
Adam Savage
Optimum
YouTube · review
The Verge
Print + video
Road to VR
In-depth review
Forbes
Feature
11Shipping 2023 → 2024

Twenty thousand
face scans.

Production scales to eighty units per hour. Every unit is custom-fit to the customer who ordered it.

Photos start showing up on Reddit. On X. In Discord. People wearing Beyond at home, at LANs, at sim rigs, at flight sims. The headset becomes a cult object, small enough that owners frequently take photos of it next to other VR headsets to show how absurd the size difference is.

80/hr
Production rate
20K+
Units shipped
@user
LA
@user
Tokyo
@user
Berlin
@user
London
@user
NYC
@user
Seoul
@user
SF
@user
Sydney
@user
Paris
@user
Toronto
@user
Austin
@user
Stockholm
@user
Singapore
@user
Portland
@user
Denver
@user
Amsterdam
@user
Chicago
@user
Miami
@user
Dublin
@user
Melbourne
/ MARCH 2025  ·  BEYOND, AGAIN

Lighter.
Wider.
Sharper.

Bigscreen Beyond 2
107g
16% lighter
116°
Field of view
2.5K
Per eye
13Beyond 2 March 2025

Lighter. Wider.
Sharper.

107 grams. New pancake lenses. Wider field of view. Edge-to-edge clarity.

A separate variant, Beyond 2e, adds eye tracking. A halo-style mount inspired by night vision goggles ships alongside. Beyond 2 sells as much in its first 24 hours as Beyond 1 did in its first six months.

14The lineup 2025 → 2026

From one product
to a system.

The Audio Strap. The Halo Mount. Replacement lightseals. Beyond 2e. The line widens.

Bigscreen stops being a single-product company. The Beyond ecosystem gives users a way to configure their headset for sim racing, for VRChat, for productivity, for cinema. The team grows past twenty. Manufacturing capacity doubles. Lead times shrink from months to weeks. The unreasonable focus on weight, comfort, and clarity stays unreasonable.

Audio Strap Halo Mount Lightseals Beyond 2e
15Today 2026

Six million users.
One mission.

A small, profitable, fully-remote company. Two products. A devoted customer base.

Six million users have spent time inside Bigscreen. Beyond is on its second generation. The team is still small. The mission is unchanged: make VR feel weightless. Make a place worth showing up to.

BEYOND 2026

Here's to
the next ten.

Lighter, sharper, more comfortable, more places, more reasons to come back.

Shop Beyond 2 → Get the app