In a move that signals its commitment to the future of computing, chipmaker Qualcomm has announced two new products aimed at powering the next generation of wearable devices. The company’s CEO, Cristiano Amon, revealed that Qualcomm is working on over 40 different AI-powered wearable devices, including jewelry, earbuds with cameras, pins, and watches.
The first product, Snapdragon Reality Elite, is a platform designed for mixed-reality glasses. It boasts significant improvements in GPU, CPU, and NPU performance compared to its previous XR platform, with up to 60% better GPU performance, up to 30% better CPU performance, and up to 160% better NPU performance.
One of the key features of Snapdragon Reality Elite is its ability to run a 3-billion-parameter language model at 45 tokens per second. This is fast enough for quick, responsive AI interactions, making it ideal for applications such as virtual assistants and augmented reality experiences.
The platform also supports 4.4K per-eye resolution at 90 fps, which is a modest bump from the XR2+ Gen 2’s 4.3K per-eye resolution. This improvement in visual quality will help reduce motion sickness and eye strain, making extended headset use more comfortable.
Qualcomm has designed the Snapdragon Reality Elite to power two types of devices: stand-alone video-see-through (VST) headsets, which layer digital content over a camera feed of the real world, and lightweight, tethered optical-see-through (OST) glasses, which blend digital imagery directly into your field of view.
The second product, Scalable Turnkey AI-Ready Toolkit (START), is a combination of hardware modules and software stack for AI devices. It includes an AR chip, a software platform, companion apps, and a white-label program aimed at helping hardware makers get to market faster.
Through the white label program, Qualcomm is offering three reference designs: an audio + camera setup similar to Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, a monocular display, and a binocular display. Eyewear manufacturers Inspecs and O’Neill will be among the first partners in the white label program.
Qualcomm said START will expand beyond smart glasses to support other form factors in the future. Amon’s comments highlight the company’s vision for the next generation of computing, where users will interact with AI agents through a variety of devices, including wearables and augmented reality glasses.
The strategic logic behind Qualcomm’s announcements is clear: as companies seek to gather more real-world data from users to power their AI agents, a new wave of hardware startups building novel form factors will emerge. This has major implications for established smartphone players like Apple and Samsung.
Qualcomm is positioning itself as the foundational silicon layer for whatever comes after the smartphone. START’s white-label program is designed to lower the barrier for new entrants, making it easier for companies to develop their own AI-powered wearable devices.
Source: Original article