Qualcomm said the new chip will improve battery life by 4-12 hours compared to the previous Snapdragon Wear 2100 platform, depending on display type, battery capacity, and device configurations. The new Personalized Sports Experiences will keep GPS and heart rate monitoring on for up to 15 hours battery life (based on typical 450mAh sports watch battery).
The processor was also made to deliver a rich interactive mode and new personalised experiences such as the Enhanced Ambient Mode, Dedicated Sports Experiences, and Traditional Watch Mode.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 3100 Platform for smartwatches was officially launched at an event in San Francisco and was supported by Google, who discussed the evolution of the Wear OS by Google software platform. It has at its heart the Qualcomm QCC1110, a very small (21mm2) co-processor and optimized for ultra-low power operation. The co-processor will help with audio, display, and sensor experiences for next generation smartwatches and also integrates a deep learning engine for custom workloads, such as keyword detection. It is extensible over time.
The new platform also includes a new wearable power management sub-system (PMW3100) to support lower power and higher integration, with a new DSP framework to support next generation sensor processing in an open execution environment, and a new dual display architecture to support the hierarchical approach. The 4G modem is paired with Gallium Arsenide power amplifiers to increase power efficiency in smartwatches.
