American multinational semiconductor and telecommunications company Qualcomm will soon be launching a new system-on-chip line up with will be designed for the smartwatches and other wearables. The progress comes two and a half years after the company introduced the Snapdragon Wear 2100 series.
Pankaj Kedia, the senior director at wearables of Qualcomm in an interview confirmed the news and said that a new silicon is under process and will be powering various devices which will be released during the holiday season. The announcement of the new chip will be accompanied with the debut of a flagship smartwatch which will have the same solution.
The snapdragon 2100 was a modified version of the mobile solution, but the third generation of Qualcomm’s wearable platform will be made for smartwatches with design that fits comfortably on one’s wrist. Qualcomm has always faced the criticism that being the only relevant chipmaker in the global wearable segment, it has not yet given a follow up to the Snapdragon Wear 2100 series since more than two years.
The new Silicon line up will be specially designed, keeping in mind always-on displays. Kedia added that the company will be focusing on delivering a solution that is energy efficient that will help to significantly change the Wear OS ecosystem. On the other hand search engine giant Google is planning to rollout an update that rebrands the Android Wear 2.0 on the eligible devices. However, the smartwatch market on a global level is already stagnating. Luxury watch maker Fossil says it will be launching more options in Wear OS and even LG has plans to commercialize one such product in 2018. LG’s upcoming Watch Timepiece is a hybrid gadget features a touch screen as well as physical clock arms. Qualcomm is expected to start providing samples of the new chip to its OEM partners in the coming months.
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