Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon Wear 4100 Platform for Wear OS Devices

Qualcomm has announced the new Snapdragon Wear 4100 platform designed for the next generation of connected smartwatches. The chip is designed to significantly improve performance, connectivity and efficiency, the company claims in a press release. Based on Qualcomm’s ultra-low-power hybrid architecture, Snapdragon Wear 4100+ includes an ultra-fast system-on-chip (SoC) and a smarter Always On (AON) coprocessor.

Built on a 12nm process node , the new chip promises to significantly increase the platform’s capabilities compared to the company’s previous platforms such as the Snapdragon Wear 3100. The SD 4100 is equipped with four 1.7GHz Cortex-A53 cores and Adreno 50 GPU. While neither is cutting edge, they are a significant improvement over previous Qualcomm chips that used 28nm Cortex-A7 cores.

The new chip also features faster 750MHz LPDDR3 memory. Qualcomm claims all this results in an 85% performance increase over the SD 3100. Finally, the Snapdragon 4100 has dual DSP. Qualcomm says this helps with “optimal workload partitioning, dynamic clock and voltage scaling support, Qualcomm sensor-assisted positioning PDR wearable 2.0, low-power location tracking support, and enhanced Bluetooth 5.0 architecture.”

The Snapdragon 4100 platform comes in two versions: 4100 and 4100+ . The only difference between the two is that the ‘Plus’ variant has a Cortex-M0 based AoN coprocessor for ultra-low power operation. The chip is aimed at devices with always-on displays and can also help save power while updating the time and recording sensor data. Both have dual ISP with support for 16MP image sensors. Connectivity options include LTE, GPS, NFC, Wi-Fi 802.11n, and Bluetooth 5.

Meanwhile, Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3 will be one of the first smartwatches to feature the new chip. Next up are Suunto’s new wearables and Imoo’s Z6 Ultra kids smartwatch.