As we are seeing more of Augment Reality or AR getting consumer focus, it was about time for Qualcomm to make it possible to bring it on to the phones. The company has announced that it’s going bring true depth sensing technology to phones. The recent advancement in phones with the Dual camera had been achieving this using two separate lenses, but with this, it will be possible to get it done with just one or get more advanced with two.

There are going to be two versions of this technology, an Entry level, and a premium version. It’s a good news for a budget phone which can have passive depth sensing mode, and the premium phones can choose the higher version for active depth sensing. Qualcomm has restructured its ISP or Image Signal processing to deliver this aka Qualcomm Spectra ISP 2nd Generation for high-resolution depth sensing. It can sense a change in depth for up to o.1 mm which is very useful for hand tracking and VR.

Image Source: Qualcomm Official Youtube Channel

That said if you are wondering the use of the IR transmitters, it’s not just for the TV remote. The technology is similar to what Microsft has used in Kinect, and some of the webcams also offer the same functionality. It allows the camera to sense movements, depths, the distance much accurately, even on small spaces. This can also be used for Face recognition, even with sunglasses on, and something advanced compared to Windows Hello.

This also reminds me of Intel’s RealSense which is actually used in Windows Hello, but then it also brings in thermal overhead. If the usage is limited to use of facial recognition, it sounds good. However, if the phone needs to be used to identify objects, and do a more heavy workout, the thermal overhead cannot be sustained.

As we move towards an age where the real world and the virtual world are slowly merging, it only makes sense for Qualcomm to keep innovating in this path. As the form of phones will change in future, more of this will be needed.

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