Qualcomm is releasing a wireless edition of its Smart Viewer AR glasses. These will work as a prototype architecture for brands who are keen on rolling out commercial headsets in future.
The Wireless AR Smart Viewer adds a quicker and more powerful chipset to Qualcomm’s prior design for smart glasses. It also comes with a tethering mechanism reliant on Wi-Fi 6 / 6E and Bluetooth. This is different from the earlier models that relied on a USB-C wire for connectivity. Ditching the USB-C cable, however, is a move that can reduce the battery life of the headsets. Qualcomm, so far, has said that the consumer versions of the devices can have a different design and provide better battery life.
Goertek is the creator of the revolutionary Smart Viewer. Right now, it can be accessed by only a handful of manufacturing partners. However, the scope of availability is set to grow more in the near future. The Smart Viewer establishes a connection to a computer or a smartphone, and relies on multiple tracking cameras and micro-OLED screen projections. It can generate vivid mixed reality experiences for users, and offer comprehensive hand and head tracking. The resolution is full HD or 1080p, which is the same as the previous headset from Qualcomm.
A big change is the diagonal field of view, which has gone down from 45 degrees in the older device to 40 degrees in the new one. The field of view is noticeably enough when compared to a headset like the Magic Leap 2, which comes with a viewing angle of almost 70 degrees. One area where the Smart Viewer trumps its competitors on the market by virtue of having a sleek and slim design. The frame depth is at 15.6mm, a huge change from the wired version’s 25mm measurement for the same parameter. As discussed earlier, the field of view is lower, but that is understandable with the sleeker design of the new AR glasses model. It weighs 115 grams, and is lighter in comparison to the Meta Quest 2 that weighs about 500 grams, and the highly anticipated Apple AR/VR device that’s reportedly under development.
In comparison to the XR1 chipset in the previous headset, the new wireless viewer comes with the revolutionary Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chipset. According to the chip maker, XR2 provides additional computer vision processing power, along with several other functions. As long as your phone or PC has the FastConnect 6900 chip from Qualcomm, you can benefit from a latency of just 3ms in the connections between your PC and phone and the glasses Hugo Swart, Qualcomm’s head of AR and VR, claims that practically, the “motion to photon” latency is lower than 20ms. This is just enough for users to enjoy vivid and engaging MR experiences.
The Smart Viewer clearly demonstrates one of the main hurdles of developing highly advanced glasses that don’t lose power fast. Further developmental progress is expected in the near future.
