06/04/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 06/04/2025 09:10
In the dynamic world of mixed reality (MR), which lets you seamlessly blend virtual content with the physical world while letting users see and interact naturally and intuitively in rich color, the reliability and performance of the underlying Wi-Fi network can make or break the experience. MR is particularly sensitive to network congestion, excessive latency, and throughput issues, which can result in lag, degraded video quality, and overall subpar performance, significantly undermining the immersive nature of the technology. With this in mind, Qualcomm Technologies and Meta Reality Lab have come together to demonstrate the transformative impact of Wi-Fi Quality of Service (QoS) management tools. Most recently at MWC Barcelona 2025, using the Meta Quest 3, we demonstrated how MR experiences can be significantly enhanced in congested and interference-prone Wi-Fi environments, through advanced Wi-Fi solutions, highlighting the critical role of Qualcomm Dragonwing Service Defined Wi-Fi technology in delivering smoother, more seamless MR experiences.
Key Takeaways:
The importance of Wi-Fi in MR
While some MR applications are entirely handled by local computing on the Head-Mounted Display (HMD), others offload resource-intensive tasks to a remote computing device to enhance performance and extend battery life. In PC-connected MR and cloud MR gaming, the game scenes are remotely rendered by a gaming engine on either a local PC or cloud server. They are then compressed into video streams and transmitted to the HMD for decoding and display. Simultaneously, user's poses and controller information are transmitted from the HMD to the remote computing device. For an ideal, fully untethered experience, all the data here is transmitted over Wi-Fi connections.
The quality of the Wi-Fi connection between the HMD and the Access Point (AP), encompassing both Downlink (from AP to HMD) and Uplink (from HMD to AP) connections, is pivotal to the overall MR experience. Key parameters include:
Mixed Reality requires stringent low latency, minimal jitter and optimal throughput to ensure a seamless and immersive experience.
Wi-Fi QoS Management
In busy home or enterprise network environments, multiple Wi-Fi devices will compete for available network resources. Congestion occurs when the demand for these resources exceeds the available capacity, which in turn leads to packet loss, increased latency, and reduced throughput, all of which can degrade the MR experience.
To address these challenges, effective Wi-Fi Quality of Service (QoS) management is essential and has been a long-term area of focus for Qualcomm Technologies.
Wi-Fi QoS management leverages capabilities defined in IEEE standards to allow devices to request and negotiate differentiated QoS requirements with the access point. This ensures that, while the AP serves a variety of devices and applications, latency-sensitive applications like MR receive the necessary prioritization, bandwidth, and latency for optimal performance.
SCS (Stream Classification Service): The IEEE 802.11 standard's Stream Classification Service protocol allows client devices to request specific QoS characteristics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) from the AP, such as data rates, service intervals and latency. For MR applications, this enables the HMD to request precise QoS characteristics for its traffic flows in both the uplink and downlink directions.
Dragonwing Service Defined Wi-Fi
While standard QoS management mechanisms enable connected devices and APs to negotiate QoS requirements, the responsibility for prioritization and scheduling ultimately rests with the AP. To deliver this functionality, Qualcomm Technologies has developed Dragonwing Service Defined Wi-Fi.
This technology allows the AP to:
Supported across Qualcomm Technologies' full portfolio of Wi-Fi 7 networking platforms, Dragonwing Service Defined Wi-Fi is designed to ensure user satisfaction even in congested and interference-prone Wi-Fi environments. This makes it suitable for a wide range of applications, from home mesh systems to high-performance enterprise and public venue access points.
Demonstration and Results
This technology demonstration involves multiple Meta Quest 3 devices, powered by the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 Platform and featuring Qualcomm FastConnect Wi-Fi 6E technology. The access point is a reference design powered by the Dragonwing NPro 7 Platform, configured with Dragonwing Service Defined Wi-Fi for QoS management.
The demonstration uses a baseline measurement, where two Meta Quest 3 headsets are used simultaneously for PCMR gaming while connected to the same AP. This setup serves as a control scenario to evaluate MR traffic performance under normal conditions. Next, background environmental Wi-Fi traffic is introduced to simulate a more congested environment, adding extra traffic load to the channel.
KPI's such as video bitrate and latency were measured to compare the performance of MR traffic flows with and without QoS management with Dragonwing Service Defined Wi-Fi. The results showed up to a 35% reduction in downlink transmission latency (P95) and a 100% improvement in video bitrate under channel loads reaching 75% of maximum capacity - conditions designed to simulate high-traffic environment, reflecting congestion conditions in dense enterprise or residential deployments.
The results of this demonstration highlight how effective QoS management can enhance MR performance by smart management of MR traffic flows and to handle network congestion, ensuring smooth and immersive gaming experiences even in busy network environments.
Conclusion
The technology demonstration that Qualcomm Technologies and Meta Reality Lab have conducted represents a key step in advancing Wi-Fi connectivity for MR technology. The results show that the user experience can be significantly improved in busy home or enterprise environments. This collaboration underscores the importance of QoS management in maintaining optimal performance and user satisfaction, paving the way for the next generation of MR innovations. Dragonwing Service Defined Wi-Fi is available for OEMs and service providers to integrate into their Wi-Fi 7 platforms, enabling them to realize these benefits for superior MR experiences.
Learn more about Qualcomm Dragonwing Service Defined Wi-Fi
Learn more about Wi-Fi Alliance Wi-Fi QoS Management
Learn more about Meta Quest