Qualcomm on Wednesday unveiled its latest chipset for extended reality and augmented reality platforms: Snapdragon
It is worth noting that it has been a long time since Qualcomm released a new extended reality platform, and more than three years ago Qualcomm released the first generation Snapdragon XR2 chip.
Despite speculation that a chip called (Snapdragon XR3) is under discussion, the company decided to choose this name (XR2). I think Qualcomm's way of thinking about the brand is to position the XR1 as "high-end" and the XR2 as "premium." There will be room for additional levels in the future.
However, the company promises a 2.5-times increase in GPU performance and eight times AI performance, as well as significant improvements in power efficiency.
Qualcomm also indicates that (Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2( , and accommodate inputs from up to 10 cameras and sensors, with a latency of just 12 milliseconds for video pass-through for extended reality applications.
When asked about release cycles in a press conference before yesterday's announcement, Hugo Swart, Qualcomm's senior vice president and general manager of Extended Reality Group, said technical and commercial factors determine the release pace.
“The biggest challenges are power consumption, access time, size, and then performance,” he said. “Of course, performance has a lot to do with display accuracy.” However, the higher the resolution, the more power is required to operate the glasses.
Swart criticized Apple and its expensive Vision Pro glasses, saying, "I think for a device that costs over $3,000... how many people can actually afford it?" You really have to get to the point where everyone can try it. This is our goal. "
Qualcomm said its XR chips power about 80 devices so far, covering areas such as virtual reality and extended reality.
“In fact, we are already seeing a lot of traction in the consumer market across gaming, fitness, social interaction, entertainment and live events, but most importantly in the commercial space,” Swart said. "
Qualcomm announced the first generation AR1 chip at the Snapdragon Summit last year. It is designed for standalone smart glasses like Google Glass with a camera for taking photos and videos and one or two displays.
Meanwhile, the RR1 series uses a multi-chip architecture and is designed for use in immersive augmented reality glasses similar to Microsoft HoloLens and supports six degrees of freedom of movement and high-resolution viewing.
Despite the efforts of many providers and major brands, smart glasses with displays remain a niche product.
It seems that Qualcomm hopes that this new platform can revitalize this market through a more powerful series of image processing and artificial intelligence “on the glass,” as the company calls it, such as voice commands and noise cancellation capabilities. The AR1 Gen 1 chip supports a 1280 x 1280 pixel display for each eye and supports three degrees of freedom of movement.
The Ray-Ban Story smart glasses will use the new AR1 Gen 1 chip, though like most current smart glasses they don't have a display.