Apple’s Vision Pro could soon have some very tight competition thanks to Qualcomm’s latest platform. The American semiconductor company has announced the new Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 and Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1. They are new processors designed for VR and AR glasses, and for smart glasses, which aim to make these headsets capable of offering greater performance and better features, such as compatibility with Wi-Fi 7.
Without a doubt, the most interesting SoC, and also the most powerful, is the second generation Snapdragon XR2, focused on what the company calls spatial computing. This chip, mainly, will be present in new generations of viewers not only for virtual reality, but also for mixed reality (MR, for its acronym in English for Mixed Reality). That is, those that mix the virtual world with the real world, allowing, for example, to view an object in 3D on the floor of your living room.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2, specifically, offers up to 2.5 times greater GPU performance compared to its predecessor, the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1. It is also considerably more efficient, up to 50%. This not only allows better battery consumption, but also solves one of the main problems of this type of scopes: they tend to overheat. At an information session he attended Hypertextualthe company claims that the new chip is capable of better temperature control, despite having considerably more powerful specifications compared to the previous model.
In fact, the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 not only improves in graphics performance, but also in terms of AI power. The NPU Hexagon that it incorporates, which is responsible for executing artificial intelligence tasks on the device, such as generating designs through a brief description, is up to 8 times greater, the company highlights.
In terms of connectivity, the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 supports Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6E. This means that, in general terms, the devices are capable of offering up to 25% less power consumption. Also, 80% less latency and speeds up to 5.8 Gbps.
Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1: designed for smart glasses
In parallel, Qualcomm has announced what is its first chip intended exclusively for smart glasses: the Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1. Unlike AR viewers, smart glasses, such as the Ray-Ban Stories that this medium was able to test in depth a few months ago, are intended to be worn practically at any time and can be used, for example, to record video or view relevant information. through a small screen built into the lens. Currently, however, both the sensors and the functions of smart glasses are very limited. What this new Qualcomm platform does, therefore, is further enhance the functions of this type of device.
In fact, the Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 promises to considerably improve the cameras of smart glasses, since supports sensors of up to 12 megapixels and allows you to capture videos of up to 6 MP resolution. In turn, the new Qualcomm chip includes a Dual 14-Bit ISP and allows, among other things, computational HDR, activating portrait mode or autofocus detection.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 too offers improvements in speech recognition and integrates support for noise cancellation in calls. Finally, it also allows you to reproduce color screens and is compatible with 3Dof sensors.
Both the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 and the Snapdragon AR1 Gen will first arrive on devices developed by Meta. The SoC designed for virtual and augmented reality viewers It will be available on the Quest 3 that Mark Zuckerberg’s firm will announce soon. The Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1, on the other hand, will be included in the second generation of Ray-Ban smart glasses.