On January 13, the "China Mobile 2021 Intelligent Hardware Quality Report (Phase II)" and the "China Mobile 5G Communication Index Report (Phase V)" were newly released. In line with the pace of the times and consumer demand, this issue of the quality report carries out eight authoritative, professional, comprehensive and rigorous in-depth thematic evaluations around the three fields of mobile phones, Wi-Fi 6 routers and XR headset products, providing reference for scientific researchers to innovate and progress, and providing scientific guidelines for consumers.
According to the author's observation, with the improvement of the level of national consumption, the rise of the "meta-universe" topic, and the continuous improvement of AR VR and other technologies, XR equipment has become a major choice in the consumer market. The "Report" takes the AR and VR technology application of head-mounted products as the two main lines of evaluation, compares the optical performance, power consumption performance and subjective experience of a total of nine head-mounted display devices, and tests the functional content of VR products and the spatial positioning of AR products according to the characteristics of categories, and produces overall evaluation and directly hits the pain point problem.
As we all know, as an important entrance to the metaverse, the XR experience upgrade is crucial. At present, China Mobile selected 9 products for all-round evaluation, including 5 VR products such as Oculus Quest2, Pico Neo3, HTC VIVE Focus3, iQIYI Adventure 3, NOLO Sonic and 4 AR products such as Nreal Light and Shadow Creator Bird.
It is worth mentioning that these products are all equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon XR platform or Snapdragon mobile platform, and each has its own advantages. For example, the first Oculus Quest2, which commercializes snapdragon XR2, has a comprehensive quality and is evaluated by China Mobile as an "industry benchmark product" ;P ico Neo3 also "maintains the high level of software and hardware of the previous generation" with the support of the Snapdragon XR2 platform.
As the industry's top SOC, the Snapdragon XR2 platform supports a number of customization features and industry firsts, and can be widely expanded across the fields of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR). Compared with the previous generation of XR platforms, the Snapdragon XR2 platform has achieved significant performance improvements, including 2x CPU and GPU performance improvements, 4x video bandwidth improvements, 6x resolution improvements, and 11x AI performance improvements.
In order to bring users a better experience, Snapdragon XR2 also achieved the world's first support for seven parallel cameras, and has a special processor for computer vision. In addition, the platform is the first XR platform to enable a true MR experience by supporting low-latency camera perspective, allowing users to observe, interact and create in a world where virtual and reality converge while wearing an XR device.
It is no exaggeration to say that the advent of Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 has brought unprecedented development opportunities to the global XR field. At the moment when the metaverse is gradually rising, the industry continues to upgrade the hardware base in order to bring users a more realistic experience. In this context, the research and development progress of the Snapdragon XR series platform has become a common concern of everyone.
In 2021, on November 28, Qualcomm's concern about the industry was "Has Snapdragon launched a meta-universe-related product?" XR (AR, VR, MR) is the entrance to the metaverse, and Snapdragon has been providing high-performance, low-power integrated platform solutions for XR terminals. The latest Snapdragon XR2 platform combines innovation in the field of 5G and AI with industry-leading XR technology, and products based on the platform are also being launched.
At the same time, Snapdragon is also striving to provide developers with a smoother development experience and commercialization process. The recently released Head-Mounted AR Development Kit Snapdragon Spaces XR Developer Platform, designed to provide a smoother development experience and commercialization process, will provide developers with the tools to implement creativity, and will revolutionize the possibilities of headset AR.
Snapdragon XR has long been integrated with the metaverse
I believe that you are not unfamiliar with the XR concept in front of the screen, but Qualcomm's layout in this field is little known. In fact, the chip giant proposed the concept of "immersive game experience" as early as 2016, and maintained a functional update on the subsequent flagship Snapdragon 8 Series SoC, that is, the chip can not only bring computing power to mobile phones, but also make special optimizations to the immersive game experience, fundamentally supporting the related technical features of AR and VR.
In 2018, Qualcomm was the first in the world to launch the first dedicated chip designed for XR devices: Snapdragon XR1, both then and now, Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 is a unique new concept in the industry, it integrates all the features of AR, VR and MR, and is called XR extended display. Judging from the products launched later, Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 generation has powerful functions and a great sense of technology, laying a solid foundation for the advent of many subsequent XR products.
In 2019, the global 5G commercial use began to popularize, and XR, as an industry with extremely stringent network requirements, ushered in unprecedented development opportunities in this context, and Qualcomm also launched the Snapdragon XR2 generation chipset at this time. As an epoch-making classic product, XR2 has added 5G attributes without suspense, and with the blessing of snapdragon X55 5G baseband, it can perfectly achieve support for 5G connections, greatly improving the connection capabilities of XR terminal devices.
What's more worth mentioning is that the powerful computing power of Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 also brings an unparalleled picture experience to many headset products. If the traditional 2D and even 3D games are the tools for players to explore new worlds, then XR games are completely immersed in the future world, its sense of realism and technology is absolutely incomparable to traditional games, and that strong sense of substitution will only be understood after experience.
In the author's opinion, it is the rapid development of the underlying computing power that has laid a solid foundation for the wind of the meta-universe, and this future trend has gained unprecedented development opportunities in the context of the epidemic. You know, just when the global economy is sluggish and playing is restricted, XR equipment can greatly reduce the operating costs of enterprises (remote assistance, remote work), making it more convenient for ordinary players to travel to any corner of the earth and even the universe. While reality disrupts the rhythm of people's lives, the virtual world is opening its heart and embracing all the "metaverse inhabitants" who rush to it.
Our views
In the view of Sina VR, the development of Qualcomm Snapdragon XR and advanced technologies such as 5G and AI is the basis for the birth and take-off of the meta-universe. The XR experience is not only the entrance to the metaverse, but also the top priority of high-speed popularization in the future. In the present, various concepts related to the metacosm are repeatedly mentioned and hyped, and the world seems to see the future overnight. However, whether this concept will come true depends on Qualcomm, the industry's top R & D manufacturers, step by step, with powerful technology as a guarantee, to create a more perfect metaverse future for all people with imagination.