Two orders of magnitude more power for AI
Qualcomm introduced the Qualcomm S7 and S7 Pro Gen 1 single-chip systems, which should significantly change the wireless headphone market.
The new products are audio platforms, the main feature of which is technology support that Qualcomm calls Micro-power Wi-Fi.
As the name suggests, this is a very low-power consumption version of Wi-Fi. This technology allows data transfer at speeds of up to 29 Mbit/s, which accordingly opens up new possibilities for wireless headphones. And these possibilities are greater than one might think.
Qualcomm S7 and S7 Pro Gen 1 SoCs with Micro-power Wi-Fi support introduced
Firstly, this is, of course, lossless sound transmission. Qualcomm itself talks about 24-bit/192 kHz mode. Bluetooth simply doesn’t allow for that much data transfer, which is why Bluetooth headphones don’t support Lossless. Now, it looks like Qualcomm is making it possible.
Secondly, the range of Micro-power Wi-Fi is much greater than that of Bluetooth.
Another feature that Qualcomm is touting even more than Lossless support is its AI capabilities. The new platforms provide six times more computing power and almost 100 times (!) more artificial intelligence performance than previous generation platforms.
You might think that headphones don’t require any powerful AI, but Qualcomm is talking about more advanced noise reduction systems and sound enhancement technologies.
It has not yet been announced when the first products with new platforms will appear.
