A few days after unveiling its project to bring advanced haptics to Android, Qualcomm announced another ambitious endeavor to fill gaps in device performance. This time, he is focusing on increasing wireless sound quality on phones, headsets and gaming headsets, combining his mobile and audio technologies to solve latency and connection issues. That way, he says, you won’t be dropped when broadcasting a playlist on your headphones or losing important information when using a headset in a gaming session.
To achieve this goal, Qualcomm is using Bluetooth latencies as low as 89 milliseconds (which it claims to be 45 percent less than its rivals), active noise cancellation, support for 24-bit 96kHz high-resolution audio and super-band voice wide. As usual, device manufacturers will be able to license the chip giant’s technology, offered under the new “Snapdragon Sound” banner, to add to their equipment.
Its first customers include Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi and headphone specialist Audio-Technica, which will incorporate the audio set into their future products. If everything goes according to plan, the Snapdragon Sound emblem will begin to appear on everything from phones and headsets, initially, to additional devices, including PCs, smartwatches and augmented reality glasses later on.
While high-quality audio is available in every use case Qualcomm has identified – from lossless music streams on Tidal (and soon on Spotify) to support for Dolby Atmos on headphones – the goal here is eradicate some of the flaws that come with the wireless listening experience to get you closer to, say, wired audio.
“The human ear is highly sensitive to faults, latencies and other challenges that often occur when transmitting music, video conferencing or wireless games,” said James Chapman, vice president and general manager of voice, music and wearables at Qualcomm Technologies International. “We want to offer innovations to solve common consumer problems at virtually every point of audio interaction.
To promote its new offering, Qualcomm teamed up with Amazon Music (which introduced lossless streams and downloads in 2019) to create a playlist of high-quality audio with music by contemporary and classic artists, including British singer Celeste and the punk rock icons The Clash.