For years, Qualcomm has been showing off its XPAN features, an attempt to enable users to get their audio over Wi-Fi and not just Bluetooth. I demoed those capabilities at last year’s Snapdragon Summit, but this year, the chipmaker is trying to make wireless audio go full audiophile-ready with a second-gen Snapdragon Sound Elite chip.

The tiny Sound Elite Gen 2 chip includes micro-power Wi-Fi 6E connectivity. Hooking up your buds to your router may mean you’ll no longer need to be standing within a few feet of your phone or audio device to listen to your tunes, audiobooks, or calls. Instead, Qualcomm promises you can walk around the house freely, not worried about being on different floors or standing between walls that could disrupt your quality connection.

The chip can make use of 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz wireless bands. In essence, this could allow for more headphones, earbuds, and even smart glasses, the ability to tap into more wireless bands than Bluetooth by itself.

Qualcomm debuted the new chip at Snapdragon Summit (full disclosure: travel and lodging were paid by Qualcomm, and Gizmodo did not guarantee any coverage as a condition of accepting the trip). However, the chipmaker isn’t the first to enable Wi-Fi capabilities. My colleague, Gizmodo senior reporter of consumer tech James Pero, just reviewed the updated Sonos Ace Ultra headphones with the ability to switch audio from the headphones to speakers over Wi-Fi. Qualcomm’s tech is still relatively unique for earbuds.

1kHz lossless and so-called “CD-quality” audio, but that’s not why the lossless fanatics were interested in the first place.

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