Qualcomm has unveiled the Snapdragon W5+ Gen 2 and W5 Gen 2, its latest chips for smartwatches.
Despite succeeding the three-year-old Snapdragon W5 and W5+, the new wearable chips have no performance gains. Instead, they have improved connectivity (more on that later). They are built on the same 4nm process as the first-generation Snapdragon W5, and use the same quad-core CPU with four Cortex A-53 cores.
The Snapdragon W5+ Gen 2 differs from the non-plus model in that it features a low-power, 22nm M55 co-processor that improves sensor performance and efficiency. Though the standard non-plus Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 lacks this co-processor, Google uses it in its new Google Pixel Watch 4. Both the Qualcomm Snapdragon W5+ Gen 2 and W5 Gen 2 are compatible with the latest version of Wear OS.
The Snapdragon W5+ Gen 2 and W5 Gen 2 focus on upgrades in connectivity and power efficiency. The main highlight is satellite support, with Qualcomm claiming that they are “the first to introduce satellite support to the wearable industry, leveraging Skylo’s Narrowband Non-Terrestrial Network (NB-NTN).” This allows wearables powered by either chip to send and receive emergency messages even without a celullar connection.
The second upgrade is improved GPS positioning accuracy by up to 50% thanks to Location Machine Learning 3.0, resulting in more reliable real-time navigation and tracking in urban environments and deep canyon areas.
Qualcomm also optimised the RF Front End (RFFE), making it 20% smaller and more power-efficient, paving the way for OEMs to deliver thinner and more efficient smartwatches.
Source: Qualcomm