Pico, Qualcomm, and Zerolight Reveal Wireless PC XR Concept

5G is picking up excitement all throughout the tech industry, and the capabilities of this technology has been leaving the public intrigued by 5G as a whole. There isn’t much 5G isn’t able to accomplish, and Zerolight, Qualcomm, and Pico know that more than most. Those three companies just announced an idea called Boundless XR. This is a wireless virtual reality experience. 

Demoed first at the EWTS event earlier his week, Zerolight showed that you will be able to walk around a room while untethered with a PC powered headset in front of your eyes. This demo was done for showing the inside and out of the news Cadillac (also 5G enabled). This was all done without a wireless converter on the back your head or any sensors around you in the room. 

Qualcomm comes in when needing to replicate the high bandwidth mixed with the low latency that a solid virtual reality experience requires. This is done by pushing the 5G through the PC to a stream that is connected directly tot he 60-GHz headset that is nearly. This is done by the 5G enabled Mobile Edge Comoute (MEC) infrastructure. 

“We’re excited to see boundless XR for PC, which we unveiled at GDC 2019, come to life with ZeroLight for this Cadillac VR showcase,” said Brian Vogelsang, senior director of product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. in a statement. “ZeroLight’s enterprise-focused solution demonstrates significant commercial potential, especially as we lay the foundation for a 5G connected future which will help deliver immersive, untethered experiences that transform XR for the consumer and the enterprise.”

This isn’t nearly the same as a wireless adapter connected to your Vive or Rift. Those are almost PC’s sitting on top of your head, but this is completely different. This is simply the image being displayed in front of your eyes. It is being streamed from the PC and doesn’t require any computing power by the headset itself. This will allow the screen in front of your eyes to be on top of its game at all times, outputting an image that seems out of this world. 

“ZeroLight’s Cadillac experience is the perfect solution to showcase our latest innovations and developments that will be coming to market later this year,” said Pico design VP Ennin Huang. “Using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chip and the 60-GHz access point, we have been able to push the quality of the content to a whole new level of realism.”

Although it is unlikely for us to see a headset like this in the consumers hands for at least a few years, it a real possibility that is being realized through virtual reality. This 5G XR will likely be used by those close to the invention right now, and soon those in enterprise situations. This will be a high-end device and technology, but we know other VR companies are working on something similar for the near future. 

“It is vital that we ensure our technology is optimised for both accessibility and scalability. This showcase, along with our inclusion in the XEP initiative, marks a significant step towards achieving this through the migration of our award-winning XR solutions into the edge cloud. With the imminent arrival of 5G, we will soon have the high bandwidth and low latency required to deliver this on live projects without reducing the quality of the experience,” comments Barry Hoffman, Chief Strategy Officer, ZeroLight.

It is going to be interesting to see what comes out of this new 5g XR and VR technology, and VRGear is going to have the latest. For more VR news and updates, make sure to check back at VRGear.com.