Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset for smartwatches launched

Qualcomm’s new chipset for smart-watches offers extended battery life with power-saving modes. The first Snapdragon Wear 3100 smart-watches will come from luxury brands — Fossil Group, Louis Vuitton and Montblanc.

Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 succeeds the existing 2100 chipset for smartwatches. (Qualcomm)

Qualcomm on Monday launched a new chipset for smart-watches. The new Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 comes with support for extended battery life and low-power management. The chipset supports Google's Wear OS platform for smart-watches.

The new chipset is available in three variants for smartwatches with Bluetooth and WiFi, GPS, and 4G LTE connectivity.

Qualcomm also announced the first three luxury brands shipping smartwatches powered by the Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset. These include Fossil Group, Louis Vuitton and Montblanc.

Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 specifications, features

Snapdragon Wear 3100 is powered by quad-core A7 processors paired with Adreno 304 GPU and Snapdragon X5 LTE modem. The chipset is also equipped with a new co-processor, Qualcomm QCC1110 which "acts as a powerful companion to the main processor, redefining audio, display, and sensor experiences for next generation smartwatches". The co-processor also uses deep learning engine for tasks such as keyword detection.

Qualcomm says that the new chipset offers battery life of 4 to 12 years more than its predecessor. The chipset's low-power management is available in three new modes — Ambient Mode, Dedicated Sports Experiences and Traditional Watch Mode. The chipset's battery saving feature works in low power modes, GPS/location services, time updates, music playback and connectivity.

The 'Ambient Mode' comes in 16 colours with live complications and improved brightness. The 'Dedicated Sports Experiences' allows users to continue all physical activities with GPS and heart rate monitoring turned on throughout. Lastly, the 'Traditional Watch Mode' offers an extended period of time for users on their smartwatches.