Qualcomm’s new XR chip was announced alongside the Meta Quest Pro, now the company unveils the Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1 platform – as the name suggests, the focus here is on Augmented Reality glasses. Since thin, lightweight designs are a priority, Qualcomm broke the platform out into multiple chips. This way the main processor takes up 40% less room on the PCB. The company managed to keep power usage under control (a problem with multi-chip designs) and says it can drive AR glasses while using less than 1W of power. The system uses half as much power as the older XR2 that powers the Quest 2.
Latency-sensitive tasks are handled on the
glasses, performance-heavy tasks are handed off to a Snapdragon-powered phone
or a PC or another host device. Part of the AR2 Gen 1’s duties include 6DoF and
hand tracking. This can be done with up to 9 cameras and an AI accelerator that
helps reduce latency. There is an AR co-processor that can do eye tracking and
iris authentication, which enables foveated rendering.
For connectivity, Qualcomm used the
FastConnect 7800 system, the same one that is inside the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
This brings Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) support with as little as 2ms latency between
the glasses and the host device. Qualcomm worked closely with Microsoft when
developing the Snapdragon AR2 platform. The AR2 has garnered interest from
multiple other companies, which are already developing glasses based on the new
platform: Lenovo, LG, Nreal, Oppo, Pco, QONOQ, Rokid, Sharp, TCL, Tencent,
Vuzix and Xiaomi.
