Qualcomm today announced the new wearable platforms Snapdragon W5+ Gen 1 and Snapdragon W5 Gen 1. These platforms are designed to offer ultra-low power and breakthrough performance for next-generation wearable devices. Both SoCs are built on the 4nm process.
The primary difference between Snapdragon W5+ and W5 is that the W5+ has an additional AON Co-Processor. W5+ Gen 1 has four Cortex A53 cores and one Cortex M55 efficiency core. For graphics, it has an A702 GPU clocked at 1 GHz. It has LPDDR4 RAM support and U55 machine learning has also been added. The AON co-processor is there to handle wearable sensing, speech processing, audio playback, and notifications.
The W5+ chip includes low-power Bluetooth 5.3. low-power Wi-Fi, GNS, and audio.
Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 is similar to W5+ but without the co-processor. The W5 SoC is mainly for kids’ watches, medical devices, and other worn devices that do not need demanding power.
Mobvoi and Oppo have already confirmed to launch smartwatches powered by Qualcomm’s new wearable platforms. Oppo is expected to launch Oppo Watch 3 powered by W5+ next month.
