Qualcomm made a number of new announcements during its Snapdragon Summit at the end of October, but while a lot of focus was placed on the company’s new mobile and PC platforms - theSnapdragon 8 Gen 3andSnapdragon X Elite- there was another announcement behind the scenes that could be the most important of all.
Snapdragon Seamless was briefly mentioned during the main keynote, but it didn’t get the attention it deserved by any stretch of the imagination. This is a technology that not only has the potential to give Apple some serious competition, but more importantly, make many people’s lives significantly easier.
What is Snapdragon Seamless?
Snapdragon Seamless is a cross-platform technology that is designed to enable the seamless linking of multiple devices, across multiple operating systems. The idea is that compatible products will speak to one another to allow you to work across them, whether that is sharing files from a Samsung phone to a Lenovo laptop, or intelligent audio switching with earbuds moving seamlessly from your phone to yourlaptopwhen a video call comes in.
It’s designed to replicate the sort of simple, hassle-free, experience Apple offers betweenMac, iPad, iPhone,AirPodsand Apple Watch. Some of that comes in the form ofContinuity, but it’s also a case of everything syncing through one central Apple ID and features like Automatic Switching for AirPods being improved over the years, moving between your Mac andiPhonefor example, without you really having to do a thing.
Apple isn’t the only manufacturer doing it - Google, Samsung and Huawei all have some sort of system - but it’s often the case that a MacBook owner also has an iPhone, but one you step out of Apple’s ecosystem you have the choice of many more brands and products and this is where Snapdragon Seamless wants to be of assistance, providing that background interoperability.
How does Snapdragon Seamless work?
Snapdragon Seamless only works with Snapdragon devices (and specific ones too) but what is important to remember is that Snapdragon platforms can power Android devices, Windows devices and other operating systems too. Qualcomm said that Snapdragon Seamless wasn’t designed to replace current offerings, but instead offer a way to connectacrossplatforms rather than within platforms, with devices sharing peripherals and data.The aim is that devices using different operating systems can discover each other and share information to work as one system.
Examples of where Snapdragon Seamless would be beneficial could be mice and keyboards working across PCs, phones and tablets, or files and windows being dragged and dropped across different types of devices like a phone and a laptop. Earbuds meanwhile, can switch between devices depending on the priority of an audio source, while XR devices could be used to extend the abilities of smartphones.
Qualcomm’s VP and GM of wearables and mixed signal solutions, Dino Betis said: “Snapdragon Seamless fundamentally breaks down the barriers between OEMs, devices and operating systems. It’s the only cross-device solution to truly put the user first.”
What devices does Snapdragon Seamless work with?
So what’s the catch? Well, we briefly alluded to it further up the page and it’s not a catch so much as a limitation. Snapdragon Seamless is a technology that is incorporated into the latest Snapdragon platforms and by latest, we mean those that were revealed at Snapdragon Summit 2023. At the time of writing it’s not actually available: theXiaomi 14is the only device currently announced that runs on one of the platforms with Snapdragon Seamless and although announced, that’s unlikely to be available until 2024 for much of the world.
The platforms that offer Snapdragon Seamless include theSnapdragon 8 Gen 3mobile platform,Snapdragon X Elite PC platformand theS7 and S7 Pro sound platforms. Qualcomm also has plans to bring Seamless to its Snapdragon XR2 platform that it announced in 2022, expanding the reach slightly.
When will Snapdragon Seamless be available?
This very much depends on the devices that will launch on the new platforms. It’s expected that laptops running the Snapdragon X Elite platform will appear towards mid-2024, while phones running the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 have already been announced as coming and will continue to launch throughout 2024.
In terms of the sound platforms, Bose has a long-standing commitment toSnapdragon Sound featuresand platforms, but its latest headphones - the Bose QuietComfort Ultra andBose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds- were revealed before the Snapdragon S7 and S7 Pro platforms, so we will need to wait until the next product announcement before Bose headphones (as an example) will be able to take advantage of the Snapdragon Seamless experience.
Microsoft, Android, Xiaomi, Honor, Lenovo, and Oppo have all committed to working with Qualcomm to enable multi-device experiences using Snapdragon Seamless, so in the next few years, there is a huge amount of potential for a more unified experience across devices and multiple operating systems.
