Qualcomm’s next chip may finally make Wear OS smartwatches worth getting

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Wear OS has been plagued with issues ever since its inception. From software problems back in its Android Wear days to the proliferation of an aging chipset in the form of the Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100, it’s been an uphill battle for the platform to regain respect. While the Wear 3100 has done a lot to improve both performance and battery, it hasn’t been anywhere near enough to make the platform a real contender. Now, according to a report from WinFuture, Qualcomm is preparing a new Wear chipset either called the Snapdragon 429 Wear or the Snapdragon Wear 2700.

According to the report, the two chipsets (the WTP2700 and WTP429W) are currently both in an EVT (Engineering Validation Test) stage. They may be ultimately be marketed as the Snapdragon Wear 2700 and the Snapdragon 429 Wear respectively, although it’s possible that the two chipsets are just different names to refer to the same thing. The Snapdragon 429 is a popular chipset among budget smartphones, with devices like the Nokia 3.2 powered by it.

Both platforms are being tested with 1GB of LPDDR3 RAM and 8GB of eMMC 5.1 storage. Both platforms are also built on a 12nm process, as opposed to the currently used 28nm process. A smaller fabrication process means greater energy efficiency. It will also be the first Wear OS chipset to have 64-bit support, packing four ARM Cortex-A53 cores that will be clocked at up to 2.0GHz. Both devices are expected to support LTE and Bluetooth 5.0. Finally, there is a feature called “Track3” which is thought to be a helper chip like in the Wear 3100 which measures steps and other movements.

According to the report, these potential chipsets are very early in development and anything may change in the future. As a result, though, it may not be ready for launch until next year. The currently available chipset options are part of why Wear OS has really found it difficult to take off, so we’ll be paying close attention to this development.

Source: WinFuture