Qualcomm interview: Snapdragon XR’s future, from wired to 5G, VR to AR

Day three of Qualcomm’s 2019 Snapdragon Tech Summit is a big one for mixed reality — VR, AR, and XR — thanks to the introduction of Snapdragon XR2, the world’s first 5G XR platform. While XR2 might sound like a sequel or replacement for last year’s XR1, the platforms actually are meant to sit next to each other, giving OEMs the choice of chips to power “simple” or “smart” VR/AR headsets.

But as Facebook’s choice of Snapdragon 835 for the standalone Oculus Quest VR headset and Microsoft’s use of Snapdragon 850 in the standalone HoloLens 2 AR glasses demonstrate, Qualcomm’s XR offerings are more complicated than that. So I went straight to Qualcomm’s XR chiefs — VP Hugo Swart and head of XR product management Hiren Bhinde — to discuss the past, present, and future of the company’s mixed reality offerings.