The next wave of tech gadgets could not have a display screen. You won’t understand that they’re recording you. And you won’t even understand they’re tech devices in any respect.
Qualcomm, whose chips energy smartphones from main Android gadget makers, launched a brand new chip Monday for brand new merchandise alongside these traces. The firm says it’s seeing rising curiosity from tech corporations in gadgets that appear to be pendants, pins, glasses and different discrete objects worn on the physique.
Tech corporations are racing to foretell whether or not AI’s reputation will end in a brand new hit product, just like how the web laid the basis for the smartphone. Qualcomm’s chips energy thousands and thousands of gadgets from corporations like Samsung, Motorola, Meta and plenty of others, so its new dedication might be a kind of bellwether for the client tech world.
But tech corporations should show that new gadgets can do issues higher or in a different way than smartphones and alleviate privateness considerations round gadgets can surreptitiously report their environment.
Ziad Asghar, who leads Qualcomm’s wearables and private AI gadgets division, stated Qualcomm noticed the want for a brand new chip after corporations approached them with new gadget ideas.
The early success of good glasses was one other indication for Qualcomm, based on Asghar. Global shipments of good glasses grew 139% in comparison with final 12 months in the second half of 2025, based on Counterpoint Research.
“We have seen the demand (for smart glasses) go way beyond what we had predicted in (2025), and that has given us a lot more confidence,” Asghar stated.
The new chip, referred to as the Snapdragon Wear Elite, was designed with new merchandise like pins and pendants in thoughts however may even energy smartwatches. Qualcomm stated the chip is made for issues like operating AI fashions and dealing with different close by gadgets with out draining a battery, even in gadgets which can be recurrently recording and speaking with telephones and different gadgets. Google, Motorola and Samsung are amongst the corporations that may use the chip.
But tech giants face an uphill battle in convincing customers to embrace new gadgets. At least one firm has already realized this the onerous means. Humane, a tech startup based by former Apple executives, offered components of its enterprise to HP after its AI Pin did not catch on with customers.
But Asghar says wearable devices can doubtlessly deal with some duties extra effectively than a telephone, like on the spot translations throughout a dialog.
Smart glasses, earbuds and new potential gadgets can present translations in your line of sight and your ear so that you simply don’t must look down at a telephone display screen. Asghar additionally stated he has seen curiosity from the retail business in utilizing AI gadgets with cameras to trace the place customers are trying.
Plus, gadgets worn on the physique as an alternative of being tucked away in a pocket could possibly perceive context from one’s environment by means of cameras, microphones and different sensors, offering extra info to tailor solutions.
“It gives you an ability that basically you did not have before the device,” Asghar stated.
Meta, Google and Samsung are all betting big on good glasses that use AI to research and reply questions on a wearer’s environment. Amazon says Bee, the voice-recording bracelet it acquired final 12 months, is vital to Alexa’s future.
Apple is additionally creating good glasses and a pendant, based on Bloomberg. OpenAI is anticipated to launch its first {hardware} product — a wise speaker — next 12 months based on The Information. And startups like the Friend AI pendant and Plaud pin have already been making waves.
Google hasn’t introduced plans to increase past its glasses, watches, telephones and earbuds. But Bjørn Kilburn, vp and common supervisor of Google’s smartwatch software program, stated the firm is taking note of these new varieties of gadgets.
“At the end of the day, it’ll come down to, ‘Is it a superior product for the user? Does it do something that existing things couldn’t do?’ And so, if something like that emerges, then we’d be silly not to take a look at it,” Kilburn informed NCS.
Such gadgets additionally imply will probably be simpler than ever to be recorded with out one’s data or consent. Most gadgets, like Meta’s good glasses and the Amazon Bee bracelet, have an LED mild that prompts to let bystanders know it’s recording. Still, some women have reported that males used good glasses to report them with out their data and publish the movies on social media. Meta, at the moment the main good glasses firm, talked about the glasses’ LED indicator mild in a earlier assertion to NCS and stated folks ought to use the product “in a safe, respectful manner.”
Google’s good glasses haven’t launched but. But the firm little doubt remembers the fallout from Google Glass, the discontinued, first-of-its-kind good glasses that sparked a wave of privateness fears in 2013.
Kilburn stated Google has a “huge responsibility” to guard consumer privateness and that the firm takes it very critically.
“So that does mean that sometimes we go slower on some things, because we need to be deliberate and think through all of the different positive and potentially unfortunately negative use cases,” he stated.