The only thing is that we like to call various gadgets “smart,” but in reality the existing mechanisms are often quite inferior. For example, when they do some technological trick, like translating words in real time, most of the actual processing is done in the cloud.
Qualcomm wants to reverse that trend, at least a little, in order to build a better, more efficient connected camera. Taking into account the growing segment of Internet-connected security cameras, the company has created a new kind of chip specifically for connected cameras that will actually be able to recognize what it's looking at, without going online.
A typical smart camera, especially those aimed at direct consumers, doesn’t record all the time. It only turns on when it sees something, usually motion, but what happens when it’s triggered by a cat, the mailman, or a vacuum cleaner? The camera then has to connect to the cloud to recognize the object, and sometimes when it does that, it’s still recording, consuming bandwidth, power, and storage space.
On the other hand, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 618 IP camera can do on-camera analysis, so processes like face detection, object recognition, and object tracking are all done on the camera. This means that the next time a cat jumps in front of your security camera, the camera will recognize it as something insignificant and won't fully activate, putting a strain on your Internet connection.
“First of all, we can improve the image quality quite a bit [over the current camera],” says Raj Talluri, a Qualcomm vice president. “But we can also put a lot more intelligence into it so that there are fewer false alarms being transmitted to the network.”
These are nice features for any camera, but the key feature for a battery-powered connected camera is better power management, and Qualcomm has nailed it. The chip also includes a built-in LTE modem for cameras that need to connect to a Wi-Fi network.
Talluri claims that devices using its new platforms could start appearing in the first half of next year.
