Qualcomm unveiled several new SoCs at its Snapdragon Summit 2022 being held in Hawaii. in addition to the highly anticipated Snapdragon 8 generation flagship chipset for smartphones, the company also announced the Snapdragon AR2 Gen 1 for next-generation AR smart glasses and the Qualcomm S3 Gen 2 and Qualcomm S5 Gen 2 for premium wireless audio devices.
The Qualcomm S3 Gen 2 and S5 Gen 2 sound platforms follow the company’s Qualcomm S3 and Qualcomm S5 sound platforms announced earlier this year at MWC. Qualcomm said the new sound platforms are the company’s “most advanced Bluetooth audio platforms to date,” supporting its Snapdragon sound technology and optimised for use with the new Snapdragon 8 generation SoCs.
These audio platforms bring a range of new features to Snapdragon Sound, including spatial audio with dynamic head tracking, improved lossless music streaming, and 48-millisecond latency between the phone and earbuds for lag-free gaming.
In addition to these features, the S3 Gen 2 and S5 Gen 2 support third-generation Qualcomm Adaptive Active Noise Cancellation, and Adaptive ANC technology on the new audio platform includes Adaptive Transparency Mode with automatic voice detection, said James Chapman, vice president and general manager of voice, music and wearables at Qualcomm, speaking about the latest audio chips.
“The next-generation Qualcomm S5 and S3 platforms are designed to deliver the rich features that consumers want most, while also delivering ultra-low power performance. We were the first to offer lossless audio over Bluetooth and we have been innovating ever since. We learned from the 2022 ‘State of Sound’ consumer research process that more than half of consumers say they will be looking for support for spatial audio in their next set of wireless earbuds. I am pleased to say that we are bringing support for spatial audio with dynamic head tracking to Snapdragon Sound technology, lossless audio to the new Bluetooth LE audio specification, and lower latency on our latest platforms.”
Qualcomm has already begun sampling the new Qualcomm S5 Gen 2 and Qualcomm S3 Gen 2 sound platforms to OEMs, and you can expect to see them in commercial products in the second half of 2023.
