Wear OS on RISC-V is on the way in form of new Qualcomm wearables platform

Qualcomm has announced that it has a new form of Snapdragon Wear in the works: one based on the open-source RISC-V architecture rather than that of ARM as usual. Furthermore, the company will work with Google to optimize the resulting SoCs for Wear OS.

Therefore, RISC-V may gain more users in the form of those inclined to buy next-gen wearables that run one of the market's best-known software platforms soon.

Qualcomm has yet to specify whether the instruction set will completely replace Snapdragon Wear on ARM, although it has confirmed that its RISC-V-based counterpart will be available "globally including the US".

Accordingly, it is possible that the new wearables might be introduced gradually, whereas those based on ARM might be phased out. A switch to RISC-V might also imply the potential for lighter, thinner and more affordable Wear OS devices, as well as a more diverse array of the same, in the near future.

This new Qualcomm x Google project might also be merely the first evidence of an effort to sell more and more Android and Android-adjacent things powered by RISC-V in the future.

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