Qualcomm makes headset for AR chip released a year back

American multinational semiconductor and telecommunications equipment company Qualcomm had unveiled the Snapdragon XRI chip specifically for the virtual reality devices but so far the gadget enthusiasts have not seen any headset built to use it. But now the company has released its own Smart Viewer Reference Design headset so as to reduce the AR and VR headset development time.

Going by the looks, the device seems as if it has a lot of potential and has about every feature that the users would expect in a VR/AR wearable. The new headset has been designed to share the workload with a smartphone or a PC through a USB-C tethering. That allows to do six degree of freedom room scale movement tracking for one thing. It also has the ability to handle full hand and gesture tracking that includes zoom, tap, pinch and scroll that allows interactions with virtual objects.

The company also worked with Tobii to bring eye-tracking to the design and matching what HTC can do with its Vive Pro Eye headset. More features include support for 6DoF controllers and a low-power standalone mode that has been designed specifically for videos, simple gaming and more. It also has a JDI build display panel that supports 2K resolution per eye with 72 Hz maximum refresh rate.

The XRI chip was unveiled a year back to deliver better VR performance than the mobile chips. AT that time Qualcomm had noted that the companies like Meta, Vuzix and Vive were working on headsets for it. There were also reports that the Microsoft’s Hololens 2 would be powered by the XRI. None of this has been panned out yet so the headset developers might have run in to technical snags. This can also explain why the reference design is here a full year after the chip was launched. There are hopes of third party developments in future.

Photo Credits: Cnet