Virtual reality (VR) technology has advanced tremendously over the past decade. What was once only practical using complex and expensive equipment can now be readily enjoyed by mainstream consumers via accessible all-in-one headsets. Meta, through their popular Oculus Quest product line, has played a key role in driving mass adoption of modern VR.
However, Meta did not accomplish this alone. Behind the scenes, the company has leaned heavily on an extended collaboration with semiconductor giant Qualcomm. This partnership was instrumental in overcoming daunting technical hurdles, unlocking advanced capabilities in self-contained headsets available at consumer price points.
As Meta continues charting an ambitious course for the next phase of VR and interconnected persistent online worlds (the "metaverse"), Qualcomm remains a critically important ally. By renewing this collaboration, Meta is strategically positioned to turn its grand vision into reality in the coming years.
The Quest for Consumer VR – A Shared History
Meta‘s journey into consumer virtual reality began in 2014 with the launch of the pioneering Oculus Rift headset. While groundbreaking at the time, it still required a high-end gaming PC to power. The dream was always to liberate users completely from computers and messy wires. This meant essentially packing an entire VR platform including computing, graphics, tracking, audio and more into a single lightweight device.
The challenge was packing technology that rivaled a gaming PC into a low-power mobile form factor. Heating and battery issues needed addressing while maximizing performance. Lacking extensive hardware engineering expertise themselves, Meta collaborated with companies like Xiaomi and Qualcomm to help develop their initial standalone headsets.
The first milestone was 2018‘s Oculus Go, running on a Snapdragon 821 system-on-chip (SoC). While promising, it still traded performance for accessibility. The true breakthrough came with 2020‘s refinement – the Oculus Quest 2. Built on Qualcomm‘s new Snapdragon XR2 platform, the Quest 2 struck an impressive balance of capabilities and cost. Features like controller-free hand tracking brought PC-quality experiences to a $299 wireless headset.
Other key stats demonstrating the Quest 2‘s superiority over its predecessor:
| Spec | Oculus Quest | Oculus Quest 2 | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $399 | $299 | 25% cheaper |
| Processor | Snapdragon 835 | Snapdragon XR2 | 2x performance increase* |
| RAM | 4GB | 6GB | 50% more RAM |
| Pixel Density | 1440 x 1600 | 1832 x 1920 | 37% more pixels |
| Refresh Rate | 72Hz | 90Hz (120Hz beta) | 25% faster refresh |
| Tracking Cameras | 4 | 4 + ToF sensor | 50% more tracking data |
*Based on Qualcomm benchmarks of XR2 vs 835 CPU/GPU
This immense boost in capabilities while lowering sticker price demonstrated the fruits of Meta‘s collaboration with Qualcomm. Rather than basic smartphone chips, the XR2 was custom-designed for next-generation XR workloads. Resources could be allocated more efficiently to critical work over standard Android tasks. Combined with Meta software innovations like fixed foveated rendering, all this power was channeled directly into heightening key elements of the VR experience.
Pushing Future Boundaries Together
While the Quest 2 showcases what Meta and Qualcomm can accomplish today at consumer price points, both companies invest heavily in long-term technological breakthroughs enabling richer experiences. Qualcomm themselves categorize this as "Extending the boundaries of reality".
Earlier this year, Meta provided a preview glimpse into the future holding their annual Connect conference. Here, Meta CEO Zuckerberg unveiled the Quest Pro headset targeting professional use cases. This new $1,500 device aims to serve as an intermediate milestone along the path to widespread consumer adoption of augmented reality (AR) and VR metaverses.
Once again, collaboration with Qualcomm powers these ambitions. The higher-end Quest Pro runs on Qualcomm‘s brand new Snapdragon XR2+ platform. This updated chip touts 50% increased thermal headroom plus enhanced computer vision and AI capabilities. Together, these serve experiences blending physical and digital environments by fusing camera pass-through with overlaid virtual content.
But the Quest Pro is only one point along the continuum of long-term progress towards technologies previously confined to science fiction:
Digital Overlays Enhancing Reality – While simplistic now, future AR applications could recognize real-world objects and environments and show contextual information as visual overlays. Advanced object detection, depth sensing and occlusion handling in small form-factors must improve considerably to support these use cases.
Immersive Social Connection – Current avatars and environments rendering self and others already aim to establish social presence, but can feel visually primitive and emotionally flat. Expect rapid enhancements to elements like eye-tracking, facial/body capture, haptics, networking infrastructure and real-time graphics to unlock more natural connection through future XR platforms.
Persistent Online Worlds – Existing massively multiplayer worlds give a small taste of expansive shared online spaces to occupy with friends. However, the connectivity, physics simulation, world-building tools and economy infrastructure are still extremely nascent. We are still years away from flexible universal metaverse substrates allowing limitless imagination while handling immense amounts of concurrent users.
While these goals certainly seem fantastical today given limited battery capacities, thermal factors and stagnant network speeds, all these areas see continual improvement at a rapid clip year-over-year. Computing power and density curves project device capabilities in just 5 years could approach levels previously requiring dedicated desktop setups. Paired with software and infrastructure advances, this steady march of technical progress sets the stage for long-term realization of imagined XR worlds that enhance our very perception of reality.
Image source: interesting-facts.com
XR analytics firm Digi-Capital forecasts that global AR/VR could be generating upwards of $30 billion by 2024 as both software and users continue growing at staggering rates in the coming years. With the right foundations in place powering frictionless experiences accessible to everyday consumers, rapid expansion seems inevitable.
The Road Ahead – What‘s Next for Meta‘s Critical Alliance
While rivals like Apple, Google, Microsoft and Sony all have competing visions for the next generation of virtual, augmented and extended reality hardware and platforms, few can match Meta‘s present market leadership in the VR space. Continued domination is certainly not guaranteed however, and depends heavily on Meta‘s ability to keep pushing the limits of what‘s currently possible in self-contained XR devices.
Here, Meta‘s now extended vital alliance with mobile chipmaking giant Qualcomm seems essential. By custom-designing silicon targeting specific use cases, rather than retrofitting off-the-shelf smartphone components, both expert partners play crucial complementary roles in building category-defining products.
Thanks to heavy long-term R&D investments from Qualcomm exploring areas like Wi-Fi 7, 5G connectivity, AI acceleration, computer vision, natural hand interaction, spatial audio design, and low-latency video coding/transmission, we stand to reap immense benefits in future consumer devices and services promising to profoundly transform domains from communication to entertainment and beyond.
While no official future consumer headsets beyond the Quest Pro have been confirmed yet by Meta, clearly the company sees immense untapped potential still left to explore in this rapidly developing space. And with Qualcomm having now cemented itself as a core ally powering the realization of Meta‘s boldest XR dreams and aspirations, tech enthusiasts everywhere eagerly await seeing how this reinforced team continues nudging the boundaries of perceived reality.
