Qualcomm unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and amongst all of the efficiency figures have been notes on much-improved Bluetooth audio. Right here is the opposite half of that equation – the Qualcomm S3 and S5 Gen 2 chips for wi-fi headsets. There’s a new platform for wearables, AR glasses specifically, that was additionally unveiled at this time.
Qualcomm S3 and S5 Gen 2
With the brand new Gen 2 platform Qualcomm continues its work on Bluetooth LE Audio. The brand new chips can work at the side of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 to switch lossless audio from the telephone to your ears.
These additionally help dynamic head monitoring to allow spatial audio for a extra immersive expertise. In addition they include improved Energetic Noise Cancellation that’s paired with speech detection – when the headphones hear that somebody is speaking to you, they’ll allow passthrough as a way to hear too, with out having to manually disable ANC.
The S3 and S5 Gen 2 chips are additionally designed with gaming in thoughts. They function an excellent sooner low latency mode than earlier than – down from 68ms on the Gen 1 to only 48ms – and have a voice back-channel for good high quality in-game chat.
In addition they help Auracast, which is the Bluetooth model of FM radio. A single transmitter can ship to a number of receivers and no pairing is required earlier than hand, simply tune in. This can be utilized for sharing music with mates, connecting to TVs exterior of the house (e.g. on the fitness center or airport), hearken to public bulletins in varied venues and so forth.
The Qualcomm S3 Gen 2 and S5 Gen 2 are designed for stereo headsets with lossless audio help in addition to mid-range buds. Additionally, they can be utilized in wi-fi audio system.
Snapdragon AR2
Qualcomm’s new XR chip was introduced alongside the Meta Quest Professional, now the corporate unveils the Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1 platform – because the identify suggests, the main focus right here is on Augmented Actuality glasses.
Since skinny, light-weight designs are a precedence, Qualcomm broke the platform out into a number of chips. This manner the principle processor takes up 40% much less room on the PCB. The corporate managed to maintain energy utilization beneath management (an issue with multi-chip designs) and says it will possibly drive AR glasses whereas utilizing lower than 1W of energy. The system makes use of half as a lot energy because the older XR2 that powers the Quest 2.
Latency-sensitive duties are dealt with on the glasses, performance-heavy duties are handed off to a Snapdragon-powered telephone or a PC or one other host gadget.
A part of the AR2 Gen 1’s duties embody 6DoF and hand monitoring. This may be finished with as much as 9 cameras and an AI accelerator that helps cut back latency. There may be an AR co-processor that may do eye monitoring and iris authentication, which permits foveated rendering.
For connectivity, Qualcomm used the FastConnect 7800 system, the identical one that’s contained in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. This brings Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) help with as little as 2ms latency between the glasses and the host gadget.
Qualcomm labored carefully with Microsoft when growing the Snapdragon AR2 platform. The AR2 has garnered curiosity from a number of different firms, that are already growing glasses primarily based on the brand new platform: Lenovo, LG, Nreal, Oppo, Pco, QONOQ, Rokid, Sharp, TCL, Tencent, Vuzix and Xiaomi.
