We have solely heard murmurs about Qualcomm, Samsung, and Google’s joint project because the three first made issues official early final 12 months. What as soon as began as an XR headset competitor to Apple’s then-unofficial Vision Pro was met with inside disagreements that led to reset after reset after reset.
Lately, in an interview with CNBC, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon cleared the air and painted a extra vivid image. And it is not precisely what most individuals imagined.
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As an alternative of an XR headset that might be self-powered or tethered to a battery pack, the chip maker is partnering with Samsung and Google to develop a pair of mixed-reality good glasses. Most significantly, the wearable might be linked to a smartphone, offloading a lot of a standard headset’s weight, processing, and battery wants onto a tool we’re already used to carrying round.
“It may be a brand new product, it’ll be a brand new experiences,” Amon informed CNBC. “However what I actually count on to return out of this partnership, I would like everybody that has a cellphone to go purchase companion glasses to go together with it.”
Contemplating Qualcomm’s involvement with probably the most succesful good glasses in the marketplace, such because the Meta Ray-Bans and Xreal Air 2 Ultra, and Samsung and Google’s expertise constructing Android smartphones and platforms, combining the 2 experiences looks like probably the most logical and protected path ahead.
In actual fact, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip was designed particularly for blended actuality experiences in smaller type components resembling glasses. At Cellular World Congress earlier this 12 months, the corporate confirmed me a reference design by Goertek — one which it shares with {hardware} producers as inspiration when constructing their very own wearables — and the gadget seemed promising.
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Having examined bulkier VR headsets just like the Meta Quest 3 and Apple Vision Pro, Qualcomm’s reference design was far more compact, sensible, and, critically, pure feeling.
If Qualcomm, Samsung, and Google can nail down the show high quality, optics, and audio efficiency of the upcoming mixed-reality good glasses, then I would not be stunned if it attracts an analogous, if not bigger, crowd as Apple did with the Imaginative and prescient Professional.
With so many fingers within the pot, pricing might be crucial. On the intense aspect, we have already got our smartphones in hand, so half of the job is completed for them.