Qualcomm unveils Snapdragon Reality Elite and Snapdragon START to accelerate mixed reality performance and development at Augmented World Expo
Qualcomm has unveiled its newest high end processor aimed at powering extended reality devices at the Augmented World Expo. Dubbed the Snapdragon Reality Elite the platform is joined by a specific development kit by the name of Snapdragon START. Officials at Qualcomm are touting the hardware's ability to speed up the development process for third party manufacturers entering the mixed and augmented reality smart glasses market.
When compared to the previous generation XR2 Plus Generation 2 chipset, the processor sees a significant increase in performance capabilities. The embedded Adreno graphics pipeline receives a 60% upgrade while the CPU itself jumps 30%. However, the biggest increase in performance is experienced within the NPU (Neural Processing Unit), which receives a 160% increase in performance, enabling it to hit 48 TOPS of on device artificial intelligence.
To deal with the increased computational load from spatial computing, the processor integrates a dedicated hardware block, named the Engine for Visual Analytics. This unit offloads intensive computer vision tasks from the main processor, and offers hardware acceleration specifically for depth estimation, hand tracking, and head tracking, improving how digital elements interact with the physical environment.
The processor offers support for high resolution displays with up to 4.4K per eye, topping out at 90 Hz. Additionally, an updated pass through transparency feature allows for greater integration of virtual objects with real world scenes. Even with the increase in computational power, overall battery life sees a 20% increase over the prior generation XR2 Plus Generation 2 on the same workload, which is essential given the size constraints of the battery on lightweight smart glasses.
Early adoption of the hardware is underway, with the chip slated to be featured in devices like the XREAL Project Aura and multiple other devices on the Android XR platform. To assist smaller brands, Qualcomm is rolling out a developer toolkit known as Snapdragon START, short for Scalable Turnkey AI Ready Toolkit. This kit includes Snapdragon chips, auxiliary coprocessors, cloud software, companion application templates, and pre made white label hardware by partners, enabling companies to easily develop and launch products.
