A new teaser has been posted to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Twitter account, revealing a sneak peek at the next generation of wearable SoCs that is “coming soon.” The company began teasing its upcoming smartwatch processor, revealing that “the clock is ticking on something big.” A watch emoji was also included in the tweet. Because Qualcomm used the phrase “something big” in its teaser, we anticipate the release of a high-end smartwatch chipset with a modern fabrication process. The latest Snapdragon Wear 4100+ is built on a 12nm process and includes a new co-processor to help with background tasks such as sensor input and sound. When compared to the Snapdragon Wear 3100 Platform, this SoC improved performance and battery life. If the upcoming Snapdragon chip is truly based on the 4nm process, it could result in significantly faster performance and longer battery life than current Wear OS smartwatches.
Qualcomm’s chipsets had poor performance and power efficiency, resulting in some subpar watches. When Samsung released the Exynos W920 with the Galaxy Watch 4, it changed that. Samsung Foundry’s 5nm process node is used in Samsung’s Exynos W920, which is found in the Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. In contrast, Apple’s S7 chipset is manufactured using TSMC’s 7nm process. We don’t know which OEMs will use this snapdragon wear 4100+ when it will be available, or its specifications until Qualcomm makes an official announcement.
