Qualcomm has announced the launch of two new chips for smartwatches, the Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 and Snapdragon W5 Plus Gen 1. The components arrive with the mission to succeed the Snapdragon Wear 4100+, promising twice the performance and less power consumption, according to the manufacturer itself.
It is also worth noting that the new components are manufactured in the 4 nm process, unlike the previous model which was 12 nm. The launch took place this Tuesday 19th July 2022.
The discrepancies between the two generations of processors do not stop there. The two releases should take up 30% less space than the previous generation chip and tend to offer 50% higher power performance, which can make the battery last longer.
On the other hand, the main difference between Qualcomm’s new chips lies in the fact that the W5 Plus Gen 1 has an AON co-processor, responsible for managing sensors, sending notifications, playing audios, and even processing voice command speech. This hardware will also have a machine learning U55 unit and support for the more modern Bluetooth 5.3.
The graphics card (GPU) of the new processors will bring a significant improvement over the Wear 4100 Plus platform model, with 1 GHz of capability, up from 320 MHz of the previous generation. RAM support has also been extended to LPDDR4 at 2,133 MHz, versus the 750 MHz LPDDR3 of the predecessor chip.
The CPU, meanwhile, consists of four Cortex A53 cores and a 250 MHz Cortex M55, whereas the previous generation worked with only 50 MHz in its coprocessor.
The Plus version of the processor, according to the manufacturer, can also handle background tasks better and optimize the low power consumption of Wi-Fi and GNSS connections. In addition, the chip will be able to provide other power states, such as “deep sleep” and “hibernation,” which tend to facilitate the lower power consumption announced.
Qualcomm worked with Google in developing the new Wear OS so that the system would take full advantage of these features, but the chips also work with Android and Free RTOS.
The chipmaker collaborated with companies Compel and Pegatron to both release smartwatch prototypes with the W5 Plus. However, the first devices released for the end consumer should come out of Oppo’s and Mobvoi’s factories.
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