Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon Reality Elite at the Augmented World Expo (AWE), introducing a new platform for mixed and virtual reality headsets and a naming change for its XR portfolio. The previous XR1, XR2 and XR2 Gen 2 branding is being retired in favour of “Reality” platforms, with Reality Elite representing the most premium tier. The platform is designed to support both all-in-one headsets and a newer category of tethered devices, where compute and battery are housed in a separate puck rather than the headset itself.
The Reality Elite chip offers up to 60% higher GPU performance, 30% more CPU performance and 160% more NPU performance from an enhanced Hexagon processor rated at 48 TOPS, compared to the XR2 Plus Gen 2. The GPU improvement allows the platform to support visuals up to 4.4K per eye at 90 fps while simultaneously running video see-through graphics and spatial perception workloads.
Previous platforms left limited headroom for generative AI on top of head tracking, hand tracking and depth estimation, all of which run on the NPU. With the extra performance, developers can now run large language models and large vision models directly on the device. Qualcomm demonstrated this at AWE with an offline device running a photorealistic 3D avatar paired with an LLM-based chat agent, alongside stable diffusion image generation in approximately 1.7 seconds, all without any cloud connection.
The EVA (Engine for Visual Analytics) block, Qualcomm’s dedicated IP for 3D reconstruction, depth estimation and tracking, has also been hardened with new accelerators to improve accuracy and reduce latency in perception workloads. The video see-through latency has improved by approximately 10% over last generation, with additional gains in image quality through denoising and foveated processing.
Despite the performance increases, the platform runs up to 20% longer on battery at equivalent workloads and up to 12 degrees Celsius cooler under load compared to the previous generation which could make the devices lighter and thinner.
Reality Elite is the first XR platform from Qualcomm designed to support both all-in-one devices, where all compute sits in the headset itself and tethered or disaggregated form factors, where a companion puck worn on the body handles the processing while the headset remains lightweight. The platform handles the full graphics, perception and data pipeline between the two components, which Qualcomm describes as a significant engineering challenge.
The first product launching on Reality Elite is XREAL’s Project Aura, a pair of optical see-through glasses connected to a tethered compute puck running Android XR. The device, developed in collaboration between Qualcomm, Google and XREAL, was shown at AWE with availability and pricing to be shared by XREAL. A second device is in development at Chinese OEM Play4Dream, with more details expected at AWE.
Qualcomm also announced Snapdragon START (Scalable Turnkey AI Ready Toolkit), a programme designed to lower the barrier for brands entering the AI glasses market. It offers a turnkey module based on the AR1 Plus platform, companion apps for iOS and Android, an AI cloud solution and white-label glasses designs ranging from camera-and-speaker models to monocular and binocular display variants. The programme is aimed at brands that want to bring AI glasses to market without building a manufacturing supply chain from scratch.
Additionally, Qualcomm revealed a second-generation smart ring reference platform, developed with partner KeyWear and based on the Snapdragon S7 Plus. The ring adds micropower Wi-Fi to Bluetooth Low Energy, enabling it to control multiple devices across a personal AI ecosystem including glasses, smart TVs, tablets and connected cars. A microphone has also been added so users can whisper commands rather than speaking aloud.