GoKawiilIn May, I was wowed when I demoed the surprisingly powerful VR-like experience inside Xreal and Google's Project Aura glasses, which are now being called Xreal Aura and are arriving this fall.
They pack a Samsung Galaxy XR-like experience into a pair of glasses that plugs into a phone-sized processor puck. But it turns out that the processor they pack is actually better than the one in the Samsung Galaxy XR. And the specs of Qualcomm's new chip suggest a wave of VR headsets that could be aiming to supercharge their onboard AI capabilities.
Qualcomm's newly announced Snapdragon Reality Elite chip, unveiled at the Augmented World Expo conference in Long Beach, California, is the renamed successor to Qualcomm's previous line of VR/AR chips that ran in the Samsung Galaxy XR, the Meta Quest and many other devices. According to Qualcomm, its GPU is up to 60% better than the Snapdragon XR2 Plus Gen 2 in the Galaxy XR, the CPU is up to 30% better and an AI-focused neural processing unit is up to 160% better for AI-related tasks. The chipset can power up to 4.4K display resolution per eye for headsets and glasses.
The Snapdragon Reality Elite chip promises boosts for a whole range of future glasses and headsets. Qualcomm
An AI boost for VR and AR?
The XR2 Plus Gen 2 upgrade was announced in January 2024, so it's been a while since Qualcomm has had a major new VR/AR-focused chip. The renamed chip comes after Qualcomm's new watch- and wearable-focused Snapdragon Wear Elite, announced earlier this year, which also focuses on AI performance boosts on wrists (or on camera-equipped pendants and smart glasses).
While Qualcomm's chips often debut ahead of any products that include them, this time they're arriving in the processing puck of the upcoming Xreal Aura glasses I've demoed several times before.
Xreal Aura runs Google's Android XR OS, and is heavily leaning on Google's Gemini for real-time AI analysis of apps and experiences in Gemini Live mode. During my demos, Google showed off how Aura can also be used for AI-based coding directly on the phone-shaped processor puck the glasses plug into.
Most smart glasses coming out now lean heavily on phone-connected AI apps to run core features. VR headsets, meanwhile, have mostly been AI-free. That's likely to change as VR headsets get smaller and more glasses-like, and maybe even evolve into something like AR glasses. Xreal Aura already feels like an evolutionary precursor to that, and a sign of where Meta plans to go next.
Better battery life
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