Overnight Qualcomm has announced the next generation of its wearable technology platform, Snapdragon Wear 3100. At its heart, the system is built on an advanced power-saving core, designed to deliver in three main areas: rich interactivity, personalised experiences, and extended battery life.
At the announcement, Anthony Murray, Qualcomm’s General Manager for Voice, Music and Wearables had this to say:
“Qualcomm Technologies has played a critical role in the evolution of the smartwatch segment and our customers are currently shipping more than 100 Wear OS by Google smartwatches with 25 brands globally based on our existing platforms
With the Snapdragon Wear 3100 Platform, we envisioned a new ultra-low power system architecture and in collaboration with the latest from the Wear OS by Google team, to help deliver a rich interactive mode, bring in new personalized experiences and support extended battery life for tomorrow’s smartwatches. We are delighted to announce Fossil Group, Louis Vuitton, and Montblanc as our first Snapdragon Wear 3100 customers.”
Snapdragon Wear 3100 is built on a quad-core A7 processors, integrating all the widgets to make it the most powerful and efficient ultra-mobile platform around. There’s the usual buzzwords around deep learning, co-processors for audio, display and sensors (the same kind of off-loaded processing capability in Snapdragon processors for mobile).
Most interesting is the dedicated support for dual-display systems that allow a smartwatch to display a low-power, less intensive display when not in use, saving significant power for interactive mode when it’s required. There’s also a 4G modem, for those who must have cellular connectivity in everything.
Ultimately, the Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform will come in three configurations:
- WiFi and Bluetooth for “tethered” smartwatches
- A GPS model, which also includes WiFi and Bluetooth for tethered use
- A 4G-enabled model for untethered use
Qualcomm’s first customers for the new platform? Fossil Group, Louis Vuitton and Montblanc, each showcasing new smartwatches to be built on the new platform. You can take a look at some of these below:
The Montblanc Summit 2 will be the first of these to launch, and though there’s no price mentioned, we’ll only be waiting a month or two until it’s on shelves. I’ve got my eyes on that, and some of the Fossil watches. Louis has never been my style.
