Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 brings AI to more wearable devices, enabling real-time translation and personalized hearing

Combines premium audio and voice technologies with on-device intelligence

(Credit: Qualcomm)

• 🎧 Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 Platform, combining audio tech with on-device AI, cloud intelligence, and Wi-Fi 6E

• 📈 Delivers up to 2x greater AI performance, 40% lower power consumption, and a 30% smaller footprint than its predecessor

• 🤫 Features 5th generation Qualcomm ANC and cVc technology for enhanced noise cancellation, speech capture, and voice clarity

• 🤖 Enables intelligent wearable experiences, including real-time translation, personalized hearing, contextual assistance, and multimodal interactions

Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 Platform, which it hopes will expand what is possible from audio wearables.

The platform aims to combine premium Snapdragon Sound technologies with on-device AI, cloud-connected intelligence, and micro-power Wi-Fi 6E. Qualcomm says the result is a more personalized experience that can better anticipate the needs of consumers, without sacrificing the audio experiences people expect from Snapdragon Sound.

Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 delivers up to 2x greater AI capability than its predecessor, and up to 40% lower power consumption. It also has up to a 30% smaller footprint, which should make it easier for OEMs to adopt in the future.

The Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 combines Snapdragon’s premium sound technologies with AI-driven features that adapt to the listener, the device, and the environment. This includes the new 5th generation Qualcomm ANC and cVc technology, which uses AI to improve noise cancellation, speech capture, and voice clarity for more reliable interactions with AI assistants.

(Credit: Qualcomm)

Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2 supports earbuds, headphones, open-ear and hybrid audio designs, camera-enabled earbuds, audio glasses, and future multimodal wearables.

“Our research tells us that up to 70% of users want advanced AI capabilities in their wearable devices,” said Ziad Asghar, senior vice president and general manager of XR, wearables, and personal AI, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “As AI becomes a core capability, users will increasingly expect more natural ways to interact with it. Those interactions won’t always happen through a screen. They will happen through natural conversations, where users can simply speak to an AI assistant and receive help in real time. With Snapdragon Sound Elite Gen 2, we’re heralding intelligent audio wearables that enable experiences such as real-time translation, contextual assistance, personalized hearing, and multimodal interactions that combine audio, vision, and AI.”

Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. He also runs a retro gaming YouTube channel called Game on, boy! Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.