With the rapid development of VR and AR technologies, products continue to mature and experience becomes more and more excellent. It is reported that the shipment of Meta Quest series VR headsets has exceeded 20 million units, which basically proves that VR has begun to occupy a place in consumer electronics products. At the same time, in the past two years, AR glasses have been gradually heating up, becoming one of the new directions that start-up companies and developers are paying attention to.
As we all know, the rise of any hardware platform is inseparable from a broad developer ecosystem and content system. Therefore, in the early stages of XR development, we can create a set of easy-to-use development tools for developers and provide good developer support services. , is a very necessary and significant matter.
In addition to the well-known XR dedicated chips, Qualcomm is actively deploying in many fields. In terms of content ecology, the XR dedicated developer platform: Snapdragon Spaces was launched for global developers. Qualcomm announced this week that it will cooperate with Shenmu Technology to jointly provide rich localized services and technical support for XR developers in the Chinese market, and further promote the development of the domestic XR ecosystem. The purpose is to promote the birth of more high-quality local XR content.
Before learning more about this cooperation and the new opportunities it brings, it is necessary for us to review the current difficulties in AR glasses content development and the efforts made by the Snapdragon Spaces developer platform in this regard.
The importance of Snapdragon Spaces
In the direction of XR technology, Qualcomm has continued to invest in research and development for more than 10 years. As an upstream solution provider, it not only deploys XR dedicated chips, XR hardware reference designs, XR software and algorithms, but also sees the importance of content to the XR experience, and firmly launches The purpose of the Snapdragon Spaces developer platform is to promote the development of the XR industry from multiple aspects such as developers and content ecological construction in the early stage of AR glasses development.
Many friends are not very clear about the changes that the Snapdragon Spaces platform has brought to developers. Previously, developers needed to use development kits provided by various AR/VR hardware manufacturers, which integrated Qualcomm's SDK and software. In other words, Qualcomm mainly provides development tools for OEM/ODM manufacturers, and does not involve specific developer levels.
Now, Qualcomm is directly participating in the work of developers in an unprecedented way, providing core perception algorithms and software to XR developers in the form of APIs, eliminating the "intermediate link" of the OEM manufacturer's toolkit, which is exactly like this A change that provides more convenience for developers.
At present, the content ecological construction of AR glasses is facing some challenges, such as: ecological fragmentation, each AR hardware manufacturer has its own development tools, which are not common among platforms; development efficiency is low, cross-platform development needs to be individually adapted, duplication of labor and delay Long development cycle; slow iteration of new features of OEM toolkits, etc.
Snapdragon Spaces specifically provides corresponding solutions to these problems, breaks through obstacles on the development road, and provides a lot of support for XR developers. Specifically, the Snapdragon Spaces platform features are as follows:
- Based on the OpenXR specification, it supports Unreal and Unity mainstream development engines and remains open. It can be adapted to multiple platforms with only one development, which is more efficient;
- Integrating Qualcomm's spatial perception and interaction algorithms and technological innovations, such as Qualcomm's support for local anchor points and persistence, object recognition and tracking, spatial mapping and spatial grids, gesture tracking and other technologies in XR technology, for more immersive and larger future XR experience provides a good foundation;
- Developers are given priority, providing services and support directly to developers, and at the same time providing developers with project funding, hardware development kits, marketing promotion and other support based on the Snapdragon Spaces Pathfinder Program.
Si Hongguo, Vice President and General Manager of XR Business, Qualcomm Technologies
"Snapdragon Spaces has attracted thousands of developers since it became available for download worldwide in June 2022," said Hugo Swart, vice president and general manager of XR at Qualcomm Technologies. At the same time, Qualcomm is also promoting Snapdragon Spaces Ready certification in an orderly manner, including Lenovo ThinkReality A3 smart glasses, Lenovo ThinkReality VRX, Xiaomi wireless AR glasses exploration version, OnePlus 11 5G smartphones and other devices have been certified, which means that these devices can be directly Take advantage of the latest features of Snapdragon Spaces.
AR glasses and smartphones will be good partners
Many people are also concerned about the relationship between AR glasses and smartphones in the future. Will they coexist or replace them? In Qualcomm's view, the ideal environment for AR glasses needs to be used in conjunction with smartphones, especially in the direction of lighter AR glasses in the future. Smartphones take on more computing power. The two will be a very good relationship. partner.
Si Hongguo said: "At present, XR glasses have limited heat dissipation and battery life, so a distributed computing architecture is required to distribute computing tasks among terminals such as mobile phones and PCs. Other terminals may not be completely replaced by XR glasses, but It’s about moving from the user’s primary screen to a secondary screen, becoming a computing hub with massive processing power.”
We can also see this from the Qualcomm XR reference design. The latest three generations of AR glasses reference design (Snapdragon XR1 AR glasses reference design, Snapdragon XR2 wireless AR glasses reference design and Snapdragon AR2 wireless AR glasses reference design) are all moving towards The direction of split type is developing, and the latest two models are all changed to wireless connection solutions. In particular, the Snapdragon AR2 platform combines a distributed chip architecture and a separate rendering solution to provide a solid foundation for future lightweight AR glasses.
At the same time, Snapdragon Spaces is not limited to the direction of AR glasses, and has now expanded to the field of VR and MR headsets. Especially at the moment when VST see-through solutions are very popular, many brands are actively preparing for new VST products, and OPPO has confirmed that it will launch MR headsets that support Snapdragon Spaces Ready certification. Snapdragon Spaces will play an important role in promoting AR/VR/MR content construction.
Not only smartphone manufacturers, but many operators are also actively exploring the direction of XR business. During MWC2023, Qualcomm cooperated with seven operators on Snapdragon Spaces, including the domestic operator China Mobile.
Helping domestic developers to expand the XR content ecosystem
Prior to this, Qualcomm has conducted many XR business explorations and attempts in China, such as cooperating with China Mobile to carry out "the industry's first demonstration of unbounded XR technology based on 5G slicing based on end-edge collaborative separation and rendering", and promoting 5G unbounded XR competitions with Sinobo Group The experience program is implemented in Xingongti, etc.
Left: Si Hongguo, Vice President of Qualcomm Technologies and General Manager of XR Business, Right: Li Wei, CEO of Shenmu Technology
And what changes and opportunities will this cooperation with Shenmu Technology bring? Li Wei, CEO of Shenmu Technology, said: "Shenmu Technology will make full use of the certified Snapdragon XR technology and platform, and combine Shenmu Technology's own technical advantages and developer community construction experience to provide comprehensive support and services for Chinese XR developers. It enables them to develop more creative content, and ultimately makes users of XR products feel the extraordinary charm of upgrading from mobile Internet to spatial Internet, and helps China's XR industry to achieve vigorous development."
Specifically, this cooperation is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
- Provide localized technical support, including SDKs for mainstream 3D engines such as Unity and Unreal Engine, as well as tools and technical support for adapting and integrating with Snapdragon Spaces software platforms and interfaces
- Create an official Chinese developer community, providing videos, documents, case references, and online and offline training. Snapdragon Spaces community tools are expected to be launched in summer 2023;
- Add more localized capabilities and features to Snapdragon Spaces;
- Provide the application and delivery of hardware in the Snapdragon Spaces developer kit, which is expected to be launched in the Chinese market in the summer of 2023;
- Operate and manage the XR content distribution platform to help creators open up commercialization paths.
In addition to technical support, more opportunities for developers to communicate are also provided. It is reported that Qualcomm will cooperate with Shenmu Technology to launch developer salons in multiple cities, where not only can you share and learn about more cutting-edge Snapdragon Spaces development cases, but also provide a communication platform for XR content creation.
It is important to mention that in the face of the coming era of future space computing, Qualcomm has also set up a $100 million Snapdragon Metaverse Fund, the purpose of which is to support innovative XR developers with ideas and ideas and create core AR and AI technologies. Enterprises provide financial assistance to help create a richer XR content experience. As a partner with Qualcomm to jointly promote the domestic XR ecology, Shenmu Technology has also received investment from Qualcomm Ventures.
The ultimate goal of this cooperation is to promote the growth and prosperity of the domestic AR glasses ecosystem, and it is also of great significance to the popularization of AR glasses. As Si Hongguo said: "Facing the technical challenges of AR glasses, Qualcomm's advantage is that it can create solutions that integrate high performance, low power consumption, and strong connectivity. Solve these problems to promote the popularization of AR glasses.”