New Qualcomm Chip For Wear OS Smartwatches To Be Announced Next Month

Qualcomm previously confirmed that it will be releasing a new chip that will make its way to new Wear OS smartwatches this year. Now, the company has released an invitation to the press for an event, teasing that it will finally reveal its new Snapdragon Wear processor.

The invitation from Qualcomm features a graphic of a watch with the tagline “It’s Time” and “Set your watches.” The invite also includes the date Sept. 10 and the weather information on the watch shows that the event will take place in San Francisco. Android Police shared the invite on its website.

Qualcomm used to make smartwatches before, but it’s now mostly known as the maker of processors for smartphones and Android Wear smartwatches. The last time the company released a smartwatch chip was in 2016 with the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 system-on-chip (SoC). Most Android Wear smartwatches released since then have been powered by the 2100 SoC.

This past June, Qualcomm released the Snapdragon 2500, but that platform is designed for kids’ smartwatches. The Wear 2500 chip is smaller than previous Wear chips and is able to provide better battery life and come equipped with support for LTE and location tracking. This chip doesn’t support Google’s full Wear OS experience and it runs a custom version of Android called Android for Kids.

The new chip that Qualcomm will announce next month will be intended for full-fledged smartwatches, with complete support for fitness tracking, GPS and LTE. Qualcomm’s senior director of wearable Pankaj Kedia revealed in May that the new platform was designed “from the ground up for a no-compromise” experience for smartwatches. The new chip is expected to feature a smaller process size than the 2100’s 28nm architecture and it will be more power efficient for extended battery life. The new chip will also allow manufacturers to create smaller designs for their smartwatches.

Kedia confirmed that the new chip will be available in different variants, but all variants will have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi as standard. Kedia also said that the announcement of the new Snapdragon Wear SoC will be accompanied by a new “lead smartwatch,” which should also be released sometime later this fall.

“This platform will significantly change the Wear OS ecosystem, what you expect from a smartwatch,” Kedia said at the time. “It is working, we are shipping samples to our customers. I have seen it moving, it's very exciting."