One of the things that 5G will deliver is faster and more seamless connections, providing the opportunity to enable latency and lag-free gaming, as well as extended reality experiences - be that augmented or virtual.

Qualcomm has confirmed that it is working with partners to make it as easy as possible to bring a new generation of mixed reality headsets to market - designed to be used with smartphones - and powered by the Snapdragon 855.

These devices will connect via USB Type-C, but thanks to the benefits of 5G, will allow mobile experiences that you might not have seen before, with high-resolution displays and 6DoF - six degrees of freedom - motion tracking. 

Not only is Qualcomm working with hardware partners - including the likes of Asus who has confirmed it is working on a headset for forthcoming devices - but also content providers, to ensure that the whole ecosystem is moving in the same direction.

There will also be a compatibility badge developed, which will make it easier to pair up your phone and headset for the best experience. 

Snapdragon 855 devices are confirmed to be coming from OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and BlackShark, with Oliver Zhang, head of product at OnePlus, saying: "Our goal with Qualcomm Technologies is to support key industry collaborations to offer transformative 5G experiences, and XR viewers demonstrate a strong offering that will deliver superior video streaming, enhanced entertainment and along with other high bandwidth applications." 

Of all those involved, it's likely that we'll see a new headset from Acer: "Acer is enabling a XR headset with high-resolution displays and 6 degrees-of-freedom positional tracking for Snapdragon 855-based smartphones. We're ready to work with smartphone OEMs and operators worldwide to deliver the 5G + VR experiences," said Andrew Chuang, general manager presence computing, at Acer.