Qualcomm showcased its reference AR glasses, made by Goertek, at Cell World Congress 2024.
Kerry Wan/ZDNET
We have solely heard murmurs about Qualcomm, Samsung, and Google’s joint undertaking because the three first made issues official early final yr. What as soon as began as an XR headset competitor to Apple’s then-unofficial Imaginative and prescient Professional was met with inside disagreements that led to reset after reset after reset.
Just 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 a substitute of an XR headset that will 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 will probably 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 is going to be a brand new experiences,” Amon advised CNBC. “However what I actually count on to come back out of this partnership, I would like everybody that has a cellphone to go purchase companion glasses to associate 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 Extremely, and Samsung and Google’s expertise constructing Android smartphones and platforms, combining the 2 experiences seems like probably the most logical and protected path ahead.
The Goertek reference glasses have digicam sensors and are powered by a smartphone.
Kerry Wan/ZDNET
In actual fact, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1 Gen 1 chip was designed particularly for blended actuality experiences in smaller kind components similar to glasses. At Cell World Congress earlier this yr, 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 system regarded promising.
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Having examined bulkier VR headsets just like the Meta Quest 3 and Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, Qualcomm’s reference design was rather 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 shocked if it attracts the same, if not bigger, crowd as Apple did with the Imaginative and prescient Professional.
With so many palms within the pot, pricing will probably be crucial. On the intense facet, we have already got our smartphones in hand, so half of the job is finished for them.
