Qualcomm is expected to show a new mixed reality/virtual reality chip at CES 2024 in Las Vegas next week that will eventually run inside of Google and Samsung Galaxy MR/VR products.
The timing of the chip’s unveiling comes just weeks before Apple’s Vision Pro with visionOS is expected to go on sale for a premium price of $3,499. When Apple first described its product in June, CEO Tim Cook called it a “revolutionary new product that introduces an entirely new spatial computing platform for users and developers.”
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With its announcement of its new chip, “Qualcomm is pivoting quickly to help Samsung and Google respond to the imminent entry of Vision Pro,” Leonard Lee, executive analyst at neXt Curve, told Fierce Electronics. “It is apparent that Apple has shocked the industry into a focus on premium extended reality devices rather than commodity offerings for the masses that have largely been underwhelming.”
In a statement on Thursday, Google said its Android ecosystem will use the new chip’s capabilities with a focus on spatial XR. “We look forward to continuing our collaboration with Qualcomm and Samsung on the future of immersive and spatial XR,” said Shahram Izadi, vice president of AR at Google.
The new chip, the Snapdragon XR2+Gen2, is a single chip to support 4.3K resolution per eye and 12 or more concurrent cameras. It will handle content up to 90 fps. The new chip offers less than 12ms of full color passthrough. The XR2+ Gen2 also sports a CPU speed increase of 20% and a GPU increase of 15% over the previous XR2 Gen 2.
Qualcomm said Samsung and Google will provide “leading XR experiences” by using the chip, but it isn’t clear whether demonstration products or prototype headsets from Samsung and Google will be shown at CES. A Qualcomm spokesperson told Fierce Electronics that more than five OEMs are working on new devices based on the new chip, including Samsung, HTC Vive, Immersed and Play for Dream (formerly YVR). Another OEM she would not disclose plans to unveil a product based on the chip, but it is not certain that company will display its device.
The new chip builds on the XR2 Gen2 chip that Qualcomm revealed in September, which had support for 3K per eye resolution and up to 10 cameras. The XR2 Gen 2 chip has been deployed in the more affordable $500 Meta Quest 3 VR headset, which recently went on sale.
When Apple announced Vision Pro in June, it put a focus on use cases for the workplace and not only for gaming, including holding live virtual group meetings with access to a range of office applications arrayed in the view of the user.
However, with Vision Pro’s high price, analysts envisioned it would be mostly valuable to developers trying to architect new uses. The case still needs to be made for how mixed reality or virtual reality can help businesses save money or increase productivity with such technology, IDC analyst Jitesh Ubrani said last year.
While the Qualcomm chip and Vision Pro are likely to inject excitement into VR computing, Lee told Fierce that “industry applications will continue to be limited and niche.” In one exception, Lenovo is expected to use new processors from Qualcomm to advance its work in industrial and enterprise extended reality.
But Lee added that in most industrial scenarios, battery life and safety for workers wearing headsets for long periods will be a key factor in adoption. “To make headsets industrial grade, they get heavier with extra safety features,” he said.
The overall market for VR headsets has been in decline, down by 54% in the first quarter of 2023, while all of 2022 was down 21% over 2021, according to IDC. In December, IDC predicted an overall decline of 8.3% for 2023 over the prior year, with 8.1 million headsets expected to ship. Only 500,000 augmented reality headsets were expected to ship for all of 2023, compared to 7.6 million virtual reality headsets, for a total of 8.1 million across both categories. Meta is the current market leader.
However, 2024 is shaping up to be a year of “tremendous recovery” with a surge of 46%, IDC said, based on the introduction of Meta’s Quest 3 and Apple’s Vision Pro, largely.
On Thursday, Ubrani told Fierce that IDC does not expect headsets from Samsung and Google until second half of 2024, but more likely towards the end of 2024. Also, he said Apple and Samsung and Google will all have “very limited quantities” available.
“Qualcomm’s latest chip would certainly put Samsung and Google on better footing against the Vision Pro when it comes to hardware,” he added. “That said, none of the companies have demonstrated the software experiences that will be available on either of these Samsung or Google headsets and that is what will ultimately define success.”