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I’ve been bracing myself for a coming wave of AI-powered, wearable-everywhere wearables, based on reports about device plans in… dead, Google and apple – An aura of connected technology with on-board cameras, broadcasting to artificial intelligence services. Qualcomm’s latest chip, announced Monday in… Mobile World Congress In Barcelona, it was designed for just that, and the first devices to use it are coming this summer. Samsung, Google and Motorola They actually build the hardware With her.
I sat down with John Curley, senior director of product management at Qualcomm, to discuss the latest wearable chip, and it caught my attention on several levels. The reason you should care is because this is a clear preview of upcoming tech products: Qualcomm chips power almost all non-Apple products Watches, Virtual reality headsets and Smart glasses there.
While Qualcomm has separate chipset lines for smartwatches, smartglasses, and virtual reality headsets, the new Snapdragon Wear Elite chip aims to bridge the gap between the categories. It’s a higher-powered watch chip packed with different wireless capabilities, but it’s also designed to support AI video input and streaming, and even 1080p video output on displays. This could include AI-powered smart glasses.
“It’s not just the watch: that’s definitely our focus, but the (device) range has expanded dramatically,” Curley says.
Here’s the news about the Snapdragon Wear Elite that caught my attention.
Qualcomm’s new chipset design is supposed to be flexible in shape. It can end up in many places.
More integrated offline AI processing
A big part of Qualcomm’s efforts in developing these chips is doing more AI and LLM work on the device, a trend I expect to grow. The Snapdragon Wear Elite feels much more powerful than previous Qualcomm watch chipsets. Some offline functions on the device could be voice AI-based, for fitness, or, according to Qualcomm, for “life recording.”
I’m not sure I need life recording, but I’d be interested in getting more AI-based controls for wearables. The extra power also appears to power video on the displays and power the onboard cameras, including streaming video. The whole idea behind next-wave multimedia AI is to make AI services aware of what you’re doing – and this will mostly happen via camera access.
Kehrli says the Snapdragon Wear Elite’s NPU processing cores can support AI models with up to 2 billion parameters on the device, at a rate of about 10 codes per second to process. He believes this is good enough to meet many needs offline, with cloud-connected AI enabled when needed.
Curley sees a lot of local AI needs for the additional sensors, including cameras, that will be present in these wearable devices. “There’s a lot of exciting inputs coming in (to devices). Location, voice, audio, text, all the sensors — we’re really seeing a lot of medical sensors coming into the retail space. What do I do with this data?”
Qualcomm’s concept of the wearable pendant looks like a smartwatch, but with an outward-facing camera.
Cameras everywhere?
In a cool video from Qualcomm about the new chip, we can see a glimpse of the watch with a camera on its top edge. Most smartwatches don’t have cameras right now, but that may change soon. While not necessarily a great way to take photos, on-board cameras will likely be an additional way to leverage AI, such as facial recognition biometrics for tap-to-pay, or using a watch like a smart key for cars or other connected things, or perhaps for use in other AI-based controls.
Another concept shot of the necklace, which basically looks like a smartwatch worn on the neck, with its camera facing out. All the AI pins and necklaces that have been flowing in the past few months show similar ideas. Like smart glasses, external cameras can be another way to see things without putting something on your face. But you have to wear a pin or necklace.
Qualcomm talking points for new chipsets.
Better battery life, faster charging, and lower power Wi-Fi connections
It also appears that devices with these new chips will last longer on a charge. Qualcomm is promising 30% better battery life compared to the previous watch chip – and it will likely last “days” of use. I’m still expecting about a full day, considering that these chips may also ship more camera and AI-based features.
However, faster charging looks promising. The chips can charge devices up to 50% within 10 minutes of charging. This is key because many of these wearables are designed to be worn all the time, and some even while sleeping. It’s as if companies are trying to find ways to make a quick stop to recharge without spending a lot of time outside of your body.
The most interesting part might be the enhanced wireless features. Qualcomm has got six different protocols on the chip: support for Redcap 5G (a protocol to support high-speed, low-power connected technology), Bluetooth 6.0, ultra-wideband, GPS, satellite-connected NB-NTN for messaging, and small-power Wi-Fi 802.11ax.
Curley says micro-Wi-Fi support could allow these new wearables to stay connected to Wi-Fi continuously, allowing them to run in the background for longer. For example, in Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses, these glasses are primarily Bluetooth connected and do not stream video by default; Switching to this mode quickly kills battery life. Streaming in always-on AI modes can continue longer on Elite-powered devices.
Qualcomm’s plans for this chip extend to almost every wearable area.
Where they can appear: Watches, glasses, headphones, pendants and more
Qualcomm aims to put its new chip across a wide range of wearable devices, from camera-enabled headphones to earbuds such as… Razer’s Motoko concept (which I tried at CES in January) to next-gen smartwatches, AI necklaces, smart glasses, and even sensor-connected bands. Devices like neuro meta squad, Which uses EMG (electromyography, using skin contact sensors) for hand gestures that control its smart glasses, could see upgrades with this chip. Maybe this is exactly the kind of area Meta could explore The first appearance of the smartwatch has been reported this year.
It’s also clear that everyone, including Qualcomm, isn’t quite sure where people would prefer to wear these futuristic AI gadgets. Is it the glasses? necklace? He watches? Headphones? all of the above? Curley feels that people will have different preferences and will choose what works. Will this kind of repetition make sense or will it settle into clearer categories in another year or two?
Curley adds that glasses could be a stepping stone to this segment because of their cellular connectivity capabilities, saying he expects adoption of wearables with their own data connections to continue to rise, especially with AI services. “On the wrist, we’re seeing up to 50% of customers using connected (wearable) devices with a service plan. We’re seeing a significant increase in that increase, especially with on-device on/off AI experience in the cloud.”
Clearly, there are haloes of wearables present on the surface of many major companies. However, it is still unclear how all this is implemented. Although these new wearables should be more powerful, the focus now is not on improving how they stay connected and communicate with each other, something I took a look at in a demo of a personal mesh network Made by startup Ixana At CES. Maybe that’s next on deck.
Right now, wearables are trying to be better extensions of your phone, first, and work better as standalone devices, too.