Snapdragon W5, Snapdragon W5+ chips announced to upgrade performance on Wear OS watches

Snapdragon W5 and Snapdragon W5+ chips are announced for the next generation of Wear OS smartwatches. Here are all details.

Snapdragon W5+ chipset is coming to the next-gen Wear OS smartwatches, will debut in Oppo Watch 3. (Qualcomm)

Qualcomm has announced two new chipsets for smartwatches that could truly up the game for OEMs. They are called the Snapdragon W5 and Snapdragon W5+, and they come with massive improvements over the older Snapdragon Wear 4100+ chip. In fact, with the Snapdragon W5+ chip, Qualcomm promises 50% lower power, 2X higher performance, 2X richer features, and 30% smaller size compared to the previous generation.

The Snapdragon W5 series chips are based on the hybrid architecture, consisting of a 4nm-based system-on-chip and 22nm-based highly integrated always-on co-processor. Qualcomm says it incorporates a series of innovations such as the new ultra-low power Bluetooth 5.3 architecture, low power islands for Wi-Fi, GNSS, and Audio, and low power states such as Deep Sleep and Hibernate.

Snapdragon W5 series chips to power next-gen watches

With all the improvements made, you can expect these Snapdragon chips to make the upcoming Wear OS smartwatches faster and more power efficient.

Bjorn Kilburn, GM and Senior Director of Wear OS at Google said, "With the Snapdragon W5+ platform, we're excited for what's possible in bringing new levels of performance, capability and battery life to Wear OS smartwatches."

“We are thrilled to be working with a range of customers and partners, thus expanding our thriving wearable ecosystem, and are delighted to announce 25 designs in the pipeline across segments based on the new platforms. We have collaborated extensively with our first customers, Oppo and Mobvoi, over the last year and look forward to seeing their products,” said Pankaj Kedia, and global head of Smart Wearables, senior director, product marketing, Qualcomm Technologies.

“Oppo and Qualcomm Technologies have closely collaborated for a long time, creating new possibilities of product innovation together. The Oppo Watch 3 series will be launched in August. As the first smartwatch powered by the Snapdragon W5 wearable platform, it will delight our users with better performance,” Franco Li, Oppo Associate Vice President, President of IoT Business.

Zhifei Li, CEO, Mobvoi, says “Our team is excited about the differentiated features in the new Snapdragon W5+ Wearable Platform and has been working closely with the Qualcomm Technologies' team to bring these innovations to life in our next-gen TicWatch flagship smartwatch. We are eager to launch our latest offering this Fall and are thrilled to be the first smartwatches based on the Snapdragon W5+ Gen1 Wearable Platform.”