What you might want to know
- Qualcomm has introduced the “first fully native, on-device AI mannequin for sensible glasses” at AWE 2025.
- Good and AR glasses with the Snapdragon AR1 Plus Gen 1 chip will assist a Meta Llama AI with one billion parameters and 128K token context.
- This new Snapdragon chip is reportedly extra energy environment friendly and higher at taking pictures.
- Qualcomm additionally introduced that Snapdragon Areas shall be suitable with Android XR.
At Augmented World Expo 2025, Qualcomm introduced its new Snapdragon AR1 Plus Gen 1 chip for sensible glasses. It is able to operating the Llama 3.2 edge AI model with one billion parameters on sensible glasses — no cellphone required. And this might remodel the following era of sensible glasses.
Qualcomm VP of XR Ziad Asghar wore TCL RayNeo X3 Professional AR glasses on stage at AWE, exhibiting off the choice to talk with the AI utilizing a small language mannequin (SLM) with none web connection or cellphone back-up.
Other than answering questions, Qualcomm-powered sensible glasses will use cameras to interpret your environment and supply context on what you are seeing. The Qualcomm chip has a 1.2-second time to first token (TTFT), slicing down on the same old cloud-query delay.
Good glasses nonetheless will not be “standalone” till they get mobile assist and on-device apps, and the Llama 3.2 mannequin will nonetheless want exterior assist typically. However this makes sensible glasses really feel extra like correct next-gen tech, not simply Bluetooth cellphone equipment.
Similar to the Snapdragon XR2 Plus SoC in Project Moohan, the brand new Snapdragon AR1 Plus Gen 1 chipset shall be marketed for extra pro-level AI glasses.
Qualcomm says this new chipset reduces sensible glasses’ temple peak by 20%, so they will not stand out as a lot in comparison with regular glasses.
It supposedly makes use of much less energy for features like pc imaginative and prescient, Wake with Voice standby, and Video Streaming, whereas additionally delivering “enhanced picture high quality” with improved picture stabilization and a multi-frame engine that mixes pictures for improved lighting.
Intriguingly, it seems that Qualcomm is engaged on utilizing smart rings as a controller for AR glasses, with gesture management, movement monitoring, well being monitoring, and 3DoF management listed as choices. Asghar says that rings and smartwatches will “allow new modalities of enter as they work in live performance along with your glasses.”
We assume that the Samsung Galaxy Ring shall be one suitable system, working as an Android XR enter system. And maybe we might see different Qualcomm companions like Meta make their very own sensible ring controllers.
Qualcomm did not title which gadgets would use the Snapdragon AR1+ Gen 1, except for the RayNeo X3 Professional. The Google AR reference glasses we examined at Google I/O look like an apparent candidate, and we marvel if the leaked Meta Ray-Ban Hypernova can be one other candidate, since Llama 3.2 is a Meta AI mannequin.
Other than the brand new chipset, Qualcomm introduced right this moment that Snapdragon Spaces has been made suitable with Android XR and Samsung Mission Moohan. In idea, this could facilitate XR devs creating spatial apps for gadgets like Moohan and XREAL Mission Aura extra rapidly.
Android Central shall be on web site at AWE 2025, and we’ll proceed to cowl all the information coming in on the occasion this 12 months. Maintain a watch out this week for hands-on with the most recent XR and sensible glasses prototypes!
