Qualcomm unveils new Bluetooth LE Audio chips and platform for AR glasses

16 November 2022
The Qualcomm S3 and S5 Gen 2 chips can handle lossless and low-latency audio. The AR2 Gen 1 is designed for thin and light AR glasses.

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While traditional glasses are great, it's not the solution.
They're too small, too light, and too condense. You can't fit much electronics in there, the display size is tiny, and it won't support a decent battery.

So the solution is to change the solution, go with a new (fashion?) direction.
What I see as most likely to succeed is something like this: The Smart Visor.

The Smart Visor, is like a half-hat or sun protector, but it's curved slightly different to have a clear display that is in your eyeline. There's a large clear screen that has a low-resolution OLED (translucent) display. There’s also an electric-activated lens that makes the Visor opaque from the inside or outside, think of it as "shade mode" and "privacy mode". It has all the batteries in the back-head rest for balance, with the aim for 8-hour (business day) battery life. It has running cameras and relatively modest processor, it relies mostly on Wifi (maybe BT) to connect to your phone which does the heavy lifting such as processing, internet connectivity and location tracking. All in all, it is an expensive USD $900 toy. This is for Mixed Reality, aka AR (since VR is mostly a dead novelty, niche, or gimmick).

And the rollout doesn’t happen online or for people lining up at retail. It happens in a city by city situation, that is the smartest way to do it. Find the city which has the most revenue, start from there and work your way down. So firstly NY, then LA, London, etc etc. It will use GPS and Tracking (phone) to know where you are, and use the Gyro and Cameras to find your eye's gaze/perspective. It will also use another small camera for your eye tracking to “float” digital information on your Visor at the correct spot. At first it’s things like Public Toilets, Hospitals, Police Stations, Shopping, and Walking Directions. Then it also shows other Visor users with a Username.

As the rollout happens, we get the company putting more and more details about the city into the Visor. Such as art, restaurants, sightseeing, attractions, and ofcourse businesses. The corporation most adept to do this is Google, with their Street View, Maps, and Search services coming together. A very distant second-place is Apple. I can't even fathom who would be in the third place, maybe Amazon, maybe Facebook, maybe Microsoft... but they're all kind of far behind.

After they’ve hit the top cities around the world, then they can go mainstream with a new device that is much more affordable (USD $200). The aim is to lose money. But build out as fast as possible, and monetize later on. Just like Google did with AndroidOS, that project wasn’t really profitable until v4.1 in 2012. They can still have a “Pro” model that has a sharper display, faster processor, better gaze tracking, maybe a built-in GPS with larger battery, definitely better Build Materials, and exclusive software perks.

Potentially the pairing with a phone may not be needed, as they get very efficient 5G connectivity (and fast public Wifi), while the bulk of processing can be outsourced to Cloud Servers. Again, it's about making the device very efficient, decent battery, so it's as light and comfortable as possible. We can then see the platform opening up to third-party developers. Something like Pokemon Go could come to it, and make a huge splash in the mainstream. Or maybe some other “next big thing”. But the plan is to own the infrastructure and ecosystem that they all rely/run on (hardware, software, financial, data, Ads, etc etc).

I truly think that this is it. And I think Apple has the leadership and the public image/appeal to get the ball rolling. Just like how it was the Tesla Model S which rolled the ball forward for EVs, even though there were other manufacturers like Toyota, Volkswagen, GM, and Hyundai. Apple can rely on all those millions of iPhone users, and Apple Maps, to build up the Digital World. It helps that most of that userbase will be located in the cities that have the most capital, so the rollout would be more seamless. Google is mostly incompetent (eg graveyard projects) so I don’t have a lot of faith in them, but when they see the writing on the wall and perhaps decide to compete (like they did against iPhone), they certainly have a larger Digital World that’s already prepared and available to use.

After the Visor has become a mainstay, then we can get smart glasses (less features and battery life), and maybe smart-windows on Luxury E-Vehicles, and even smart helmets. Or you can grab something like an iPad, open the camera and take a walk, and the App will turn the iPad into a “Virtual Window” and show a Mixed Reality for the user like a Smart Visor.

Zuckerberg has the wrong idea, it is not about Meta or Virtual Reality, that is a very lonesome experience… the future is about Mixed Reality. Ironically it was Microsoft who was the first to discover this truth with their HoloLens vision, but they’ve been sitting on it for years. They're worse than Google, just like they did with WindowsCE, their incompetence will show again as Apple and Google create a new Ecosystem and they're left behind. Unfortunately it will be China that is out of bounds, and will eventually lead in this market in their Mainland Market. However, anti-West nations like Russia will block such device being used (like drone flight areas) due to privacy concerns and political reasons. Many cities won’t get serviced due to being a low priority, mostly in Africa, South America, Middle East, and Central Asia… also they lack some of the connectivity requirements and have little financial incentives.

    Bigmeme, 17 Nov 2022More like 5-6 yearsIt will depend on battery too. Solid state and sodium ion batteries just started selling and their energy density is lower than lithium ion in the start. It will take 10 years to make a huge difference.

      Vikass17, 17 Nov 2022It will take 10 more years for a good AR glass with all day... moreMore like 5-6 years

        It will take 10 more years for a good AR glass with all day battery. All purpose glasses, no need for "host device".

          i mean, what are the differences between the qualcomm S3 and S5?

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