Qualcomm introduced a new hardware platform destined to power wearable devices such as smartwatches. Two chips called Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 and Snapdragon D5+ Gen 1 will take the place previously occupied by the Snapdragon Wear 4100/4100+ found in Mason, Zebra, TAG or Louis Vuitton watches.
As new wearables come out, consumers can expect significant improvements in speed (up to 2X) and battery life (up to +50%). This is because Qualcomm uses an advanced 4nm (nanometer) semiconductor manufacturing process and improved chip design.
The Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 is more advanced as it features an Always-ON (AON) unit optimized for voice recognition, media playback, positioning and other tasks that don’t require the central processor to be on.
The Qualcomm specs show some “power islands” on the W5+ Gen 1. In chip design terminology, this means entire sections of the chips can be turned off completely (no power at all) to maximize battery life. These sections are Audio, Wi-Fi, and GNSS.
Additionally, the same model has Deep Sleep and Hibernate power states, which the W5 (Non-Plus) doesn’t have. While power consumption may not be zero, it is still significantly reduced to a trickle.
Without going into all the technical details, this new generation of wearable processors seems very promising and exciting from the user’s point of view. Speed and battery life have been two traditional pain points for wearables, and these W5/W5+ Gen 1 processors hit all the right spots.
Finally, Qualcomm has been working “very closely” with Google to optimize Wear OS for the new hardware. Hopefully on Day 1 the devices will be near maximum performance.
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