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ODG’s augmented reality glasses will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip

By Koh Wanzi - on 5 Jan 2017, 11:28am

ODG’s augmented reality glasses will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip

Qualcomm says that its new flagship Snapdragon 835 was designed to enable better virtual reality experiences in both smartphones and headsets, and it already has something to back its claims up. Wearables company Osterhout Design Group (ODG) will put the Snapdragon 835 in its new R-8 and R-9 AR/VR glasses, which are aimed at the mass consumer market and light enterprise use.

Still, we have our doubts about that because the smart glasses are still in no way affordable. The R-8, which is the smaller and lighter of the two, will sell for under US$1,000, while the R-9 will ship at US$1,799. Of course, they’re cheap if you compare them against the US$3,000 that Microsoft is asking for the HoloLens Development Edition, but it’ll still take some time before glasses like these become a truly attractive proposition.

That said, these are the first smart glasses to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 835 chip, which is set to be featured in the next wave of premium Android devices as well.

Both units are equipped with embedded 6 degrees of freedom (6DoF) tracking, dual microphones, and directional speakers. The operating system is built on Android 7.0 Nougat, so ODG will also be able to take advantage of Android apps.

The R-9 is geared toward business users, so it has a richer spec sheet comprising a 1080p resolution, a wider 50-degree field of view, and a 13-megapixel front facing camera that can capture 4K video at 60fps or 1080p at 120fps.

In comparison, the R-8 has a narrower 40-degree field of view and a more modest 720p resolution.

On Qualcomm’s part, the use of the Snapdragon 835 in a device other than a smartphone is a sign of the company’s efforts to diversify and move beyond mobile devices. Its chips are already set to appear in Windows laptops, after Microsoft announced in December that Windows 10 will now run on ARM processors.

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