Smart watches will gain more autonomy and performance with the new Qualcomm

Now we could see a leap in both performance and energy efficiency of the smart watches that are going to come out on the market from now on, since Qualcomm has presented the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 and the W5 Gen 1, the new chips that They will succeed the Snapdragon Wear 4100+, moving from a 12nm process to a 4nm process, allowing for smaller, higher-performance, and lower-power chips from the outset.

The company points out that the battery life of the devices with the new chips will be 50% higher compared to the devices that incorporate the Snapdragon Wear 4100+. Also that when going from a 12nm process to a 4nm one, the transistors of these chips will be smaller, making these chips 30% smaller, also doubling their performance.

A jump that this time will be more appreciable

On this occasion, Qualcomm has also taken advantage of the launch to change the name of the new generation chips, this time having two chips, the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 and the W5 Gen 1.

The only difference between the two is that the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 has a 22nm coprocessor, which will be in charge of offloading work to the main processor. In this regard, always-on tasks such as continuous health monitoring, ambient light management, receiving notifications, and more will be handled by the new coprocessor, with the main processor handling those tasks that rely on direct user interaction with the device.

For Qualcomm, having the coprocessor take care of notifications will mean a 57% reduction in power consumption compared to the latest generation Wear 4100+ chip. The W5 Gen 1 chip, without a coprocessor, is intended for devices specifically aimed at people with special protection, such as children and the elderly, by requiring that some of the functions must be permanently active.

For the rest, these chips have a modem compatible with all existing radio frequency bands in different parts of the world, and also, in collaboration with Google, Wear OS is optimized to work with these processors.

It is already known which will be the first models to carry the new chips. On the one hand, the W5 Gen 1 will be incorporated into the new Oppo Watch 3, which will be launched this coming August, while the new Mobvoi TicWatch will have the W5+ Gen 1, which will be launched later this year.

According to Qualcomm, there are already more than 25 device designs in development using the chips unveiled today. Google further confirms that any new smartwatches it launches with W5+ Gen 1 will come with the latest version of Wear OS.

Image Credit: Qualcomm