Samsung’s Smart Glasses Could Use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR1+ Chip

During I/O 2025, Google revealed it’s teaming up with Samsung and Qualcomm to bring smart glasses and XR headsets to market. At the keynote, Google said Samsung’s XR headset would hit the shelves later this year. But new rumors suggest Project Moohan might see the light of day next month, possibly in South Korea. Aside from that, details about the smart glasses are still few and far between.

Qualcomm unveils new Snapdragon AR1+ chip, and it’s about 26% smaller

That could soon change. Qualcomm has introduced a new chip that’s made specifically for lightweight AR devices. Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon AR1+ chip comes as a compact and power-efficient choice. According to the company, it’s 26 percent smaller than previous designs, which could allow manufacturers like Samsung to shrink the heigh of glasses’ temples by up to 20 percent. That basically means, Samsung could make the AR glasses look more like simpler eyewear.

Despite its small size, the Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1+ is no slouch. It includes a quad-core Kryo CPU running at 1.9GHz, an Adreno GPU, and support for LPDDR4x RAM. It supports 1280 x 1280 pixel displays per eye at 60 frames per second. The chip is also tuned for more efficient Bluetooth audio, video streaming, and wake word detection.

One of the most promising aspects of the AR1+ is its built-in support for on-device AI. It can run small language models like Meta’s Llama 1B fully offline. Qualcomm demoed this capability with an AI assistant running locally on AR glasses. That kind of functionality could open up entirely new use cases.

The chip also brings solid imaging capabilities, with a dual 14-bit ISP that handles two 12MP cameras and enables HDR10+ video and facial landmark detection. This could help future smart glasses better understand their surroundings and deliver sharper, more useful visuals. Samsung hasn’t confirmed if its upcoming smart glasses will use the Snapdragon AR1+, but given Qualcomm’s deep involvement, it’s likely. The rest, we’ll know as we get closer to launch.