Notebookcheck Logo

Qualcomm teases 'the clock is ticking' on next-generation Snapdragon Wear platform

Mobvoi may be one of Qualcomm's first partners to use the Wear 5100 or Wear 5100+. (Image source: NotebookCheck)
Mobvoi may be one of Qualcomm's first partners to use the Wear 5100 or Wear 5100+. (Image source: NotebookCheck)
Qualcomm has hinted to fans that it is on the verge of announcing new smartwatch chipsets. Rumoured to be the Snapdragon Wear 5100 and Snapdragon Wear 5100+, the chipsets could make their way into Wear OS smartwatches later this year and beyond. Qualcomm's next-generation smartwatches are expected to feature some similarities with the Wear 4100 and Wear 4100+, but there should be some major changes too.

It seems that Qualcomm is preparing to introduce a new Snapdragon Wear Platform. While the company continues to innovate with newer smartphone chipsets, it has left the Snapdragon Wear 4100 and Snapdragon Wear 4100+ as its primary smartwatch chipsets, despite releasing the pair in summer 2020. As such, products like the TicWatch Pro 3 are just as powerful as this year's Montblanc Summit 3.

As the embedded tweet below shows, Qualcomm has teased 'the clock is ticking on something big'. If that was not clear enough, the company also included a smartwatch emoji within the same tweet. Unfortunately, Qualcomm has not provided any details about this unreleased Snapdragon Wear chipset yet, nor when it will be arriving. Based on previous leaks, the chipset could arrive as the Snapdragon Wear 5100 and Snapdragon Wear 5100+, with the latter featuring a low-powered co-processor that the former lacks. In practice, the pair should perform as well as each other.

According to Roland Quandt, Qualcomm has built the Snapdragon Wear 5100 platforms on Samsung 4 nm nodes, a significant reduction from the 12 nm process on which it based the Snapdragon Wear 4100 platforms. Conversely, the Snapdragon Wear 5100 and Snapdragon Wear 5100+ are expected to launch with the same ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores as its predecessors, and with identical 1.7 GHz clock speeds to boot. Purportedly, Qualcomm's next-generation Wear OS chipsets will utilise faster RAM and more powerful GPUs though, which should improve performance while delivering better battery life in some areas. Presumably, Fossil and Mobvoi will be the first partners to utilise the Snapdragon Wear 5100 platforms, with Google rumoured to have chosen custom Exynos silicon for the Pixel Watch.

Source(s)

static version load dynamic
Loading Comments
Comment on this article
Please share our article, every link counts!
> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2022 07 > Qualcomm teases 'the clock is ticking' on next-generation Snapdragon Wear platform
Alex Alderson, 2022-07-13 (Update: 2022-07-13)