Following last week’s SoC teasers, Qualcomm today announces two new wearable chipsets. To succeed the Snapdragon Wear 4100+ platform, Qualcomm announces Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 and W5 + Gen 1. Both SoCs are based on the 4nm process and represent a drastic improvement on Qualcomm’s offering for wearables.
Qualcomm says its new wearable chipsets will deliver up to 2x the performance using half the power of the Snapdragon Wear 4100+ platform. In typical scenarios, the W5 + can provide up to 50% more battery life while taking up 30% less space than previous generations. Qualcomm has been working closely with Google over the past few quarters to optimize Wear OS for the new SoC.
The main difference between Snapdragon W5 and W5 + Gen 1 is that the non Plus model skips the AON coprocessor. It intends to equip segment-specific wearables with Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 as they will not require additional power-saving capabilities. This includes wearables for the China, Children, Seniors, Health and Business segments.
The W5 + Gen 1 consists of four Cortex A53 cores and one Cortex M55 efficiency core at 250 MHz. Graphics are handled by the A702 GPU clocked at 1 GHz (significant increase from the A504 320 MHz GPU of the 4100+) and memory has been updated to support 2133Mhz LPDDR4. Here, too, a new U55 Machine Learning unit has been added.
The new W5 + coprocessor can handle more background tasks while consuming less power. All wearable detection is handled by the AON (always-on) co-processor (22nm) and with the W5 + Gen 1, voice processing, audio playback and notifications can now be transmitted to the co-processor. The AON chip will also enable low-power Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi, GNSS, and will add support for new power states like Deep Sleep and Hibernate. LTE is also getting a low-power mode with an upgrade modem.
Qualcomm announces that it has partnered with Compel and Pegatron to create reference smartwatches with integrated Snapdragon W5 + to help partners develop products faster.
Mobvoi and Oppo will be the first OEMs to launch wearables with Qualcomm’s new SoC, and the chip maker says 25 smartwatch projects are currently in the works. Oppo is expected to make an announcement in August for the Oppo Watch 3.
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