CES2022: Qualcomm + Microsoft teamed up with AR glasses solution

Microsoft's HoloLens 2 AR headset already uses Qualcomm chips. So will its future AR glasses. Qualcomm and Microsoft announced a collaboration at this year's CES 2022 meeting on Tuesday, noting that future AR glasses will use new custom chips. Future products using custom chips will aim to combine Microsoft's mixed reality software with Qualcomm's phone-based AR platform.

According to Qualcomm, this partnership is also integrating software platforms. Microsoft already owns its cross-device Microsoft Mesh VR/AR ecosystem, as well as its Windows mixed reality platform, and this year integrated Teams into VR and AR. But Qualcomm is developing a mobile phone software platform called Snapdragon Spaces, which plans to bridge the upcoming wave of AR glasses and Android phones.

Overall, smart glasses are still a work in progress, but one of the key things that these types of devices still need is a universal software platform. This sounds like the problem Qualcomm's collaboration is designed to solve.

According to Qualcomm's press release, the collaboration will involve "developing custom AR chips to enable a new wave of efficient, lightweight AR glasses that deliver rich and immersive experiences, and plans to integrate software such as Microsoft Mesh and snapdragon Spaces XR developer platforms." Whether that means Microsoft's future AR glasses will have additional capabilities beyond others in Qualcomm's planned lineup is not entirely clear, but it does suggest that a common connection line between future AR products may already be formed. Of course, this is exactly what the whole "metacosmic strategy" that seems to be going on everywhere now has always been needed.

Microsoft is already exploring the use of HoloLens 2 for more outdoor uses as a stepping stone to future small eyewear devices. Last year, the company announced an exploratory partnership with Niantic to explore how the game will eventually run on smart glasses.

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