Two years that the amateurs of wearables awaited the arrival of successors to the Wear 4100 and 4100+. Good news, the wait is over. Qualcomm has just formalized its new SoCs for connected watches, with beautiful promises in support. We take stock of the Snapdragon W5 and W5+ Gen 1.
Good news never comes alone, two smartwatches signed OPPO and Mobvoi should take advantage of this new platform from August!
W5 and W5+: the dream SoC for connected watches?
The release of the very first SoC for wearable from Qualcomm dates back to 2016, with the venerable Wear 2100. Then, several models followed, with one release every two years or so. The founder’s latest processors, the Wear 4100 and 4100+, therefore date back to 2020. The next generation is coming now, with a small name change to boot.
The Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 and W5+ Gen 1 undeniably make great promises on paper: 50% more battery life, doubled performance and 30% smaller size compared to the Wear 4100+.
This platform for wearables uses two processing units as before:
- The main processor engraved in 4 nm with four ARM Cortex A53 cores;
- a secondary unit engraved in 22 nm equipped with a low-power M55 core, compatible with Bluetooth 5.3.
The principle is the same as on the Wear 4100/4100+ except that the emphasis is placed – even more than before – on low consumption. Multiple “islands” are designed to handle audio, Wi-Fi and GPS with minimal impact on battery. The SoCs are also able to go into hibernation and deep sleep states, always with a view to optimizing the duration of use between each recharge. The mode Always On seems to have benefited from some work as well, probably in order to compete with that of the Apple Watch Series 7.
In the idea, the main processor is only used for the most demanding tasks, such as watching videos, making hands-free calls or using the voice assistant. For the rest, the M55 co-processor takes over in order to offload the main SoC. According to Qualcomm, the consumption for background notifications alone drops from 6 mA on the Wear 4100+ to 2.6 mA on the W5+ Gen 1.
Of course, these data should be taken with a grain of salt. The founder still announces the possibility of holding the charge for up to 72 hours, mode Always On activated on a watch with a 600 mAh battery. This should leave more than one WearOS user dreaming!
Unsurprisingly, Qualcomm’s new processors are bound to work with Google’s smartwatch operating system. The Snapdragon W5+ will however be able to run other RTOS type systems.
Mobvoi and OPPO are (already) preparing their new WearOS watches under Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1
The newcomers from Qualcomm seem to be emulated. OPPO and Mobvoi thus have new connected watches in their bins, of course powered by the Snapdragon W5 and W5+.
The OPPO Watch 3 Serie will be equipped with the SoC Snapdragon W5, an Android AOSP system animating the tocante. It will be the first utility connected watch on the market to take advantage of the services of the W5. Its official release is scheduled for August 2022.
For its part, Mobvoi will draw a new TicWatch. For this model, the Snapdragon W5+ was preferred, which could suggest that the Chinese smartwatch will aim for the high end in order to stand out. WearOS will be there, with an estimated release in fall 2022.
Other manufacturers should enter the dance by the end of the year, Qualcomm having announced no less than 25 devices in preparation, whose designs are designed by the ODMs Compal and Pegatron. Without going too far, we imagine that Fossil, Skagen and others will be there. Google could also create a surprise with its Pixel Watch, which rumors initially announced was running with an Exynos SoC.
See you in a few weeks to find out with us if all of Qualcomm’s beautiful promises will be kept!
Source: press release
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