Yesterday saw the launch of two flagship smartphone chips: the Snapdragon 8 Elite Extreme Gen 6 and the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 6. Today, the focus of the Snapdragon Summit shifted to an increasingly popular segment: smart wearables.
This category includes smart glasses with cameras, smart earbuds with cameras, and smart pins—devices that Qualcomm anticipates will require greater processing power in the near future.
The Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 addresses this demand, serving as the successor to the Snapdragon S7 Gen 1 launched over two years ago. The new chip is 30% smaller than its predecessor and features an eNPU to handle artificial intelligence (AI) tasks directly on the device.
The Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 consumes 40% less power while delivering 128 GOPS of processing power—double that of the previous generation. Despite these improvements, it continues to support premium features such as Qualcomm aptX Lossless, XPAN, and ANC, which are essential for high-end headphones and earbuds.
With the Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2, Qualcomm is taking an early step toward providing chips for wearables that go beyond a sole focus on audio quality. At this morning's launch event, Qualcomm announced collaborations with HP and Bose to develop smart products powered by the Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2.
