Snapdragon Wear 4100: All you need to know about Qualcomm’s next smartwatch platform
Designed for next-gen smartwatches, the Snapdragon Wear 4100 and the Snapdragon Wear 4100 Plus are based on Qualcomm’s ultra-low power hybrid architecture and are welcome upgrades to the Snapdragon Wear 3100 platform.
The Snapdragon Wear 4100 Plus aims to deliver up to 85% faster performance than its predecessor, with quicker app launches, concurrent use cases, smoother and responsive UX, richer photo and video and a 25% longer battery life.
The 4100 Plus architecture includes a super-fast SoC with quad-core A53 processors, the Qualcomm Adreno 504 GPU, faster LPDDR3 memory, a cellular modem and dual ISPs to support up to 16 MP (impressive for a watch) cameras and a 12nm low power process.
The Plus also features a smarter Always On (AON) co-processor and extended offload experiences. These can include continuous heart rate monitoring, sleep monitoring, faster tilt-to-wake responsiveness, step counting, alarms, timers and haptics. of course whether or not a watch will take advantage of these features is dependant on the watchmaker.
Related: Best smartwatch
When will the Snapdragon Wear 4100 and 4100 Plus be released?
The Snapdragon Wear 4100 platforms support the Android Open source Platform (AOSP) and the Wear OS by Google OS platform, and are available from today.
The first smartwatches powered by the Wear 4100 platforms – the imoo Z6 Ultra and the Mobvoi Tic Watch Pro – will launch later this year, with the Z6 Ultra expected to start shipping in the next month.
Which smartwatches will support the Snapdragon Wear 4100 and 4100 Plus?
Qualcomm has already confirmed a few companies that will be jumping on the Wear 4100 platform in the near future. Among the first are the above-mentioned imoo and Mobvoi.
Related: Apple Watch 6
Kids smartwatch brand imoo plans to launch the Wear 4100-based Z6 Ultra in the next month. The first Android smartwatch on the platform will deliver highly responsive performance, support for video and pictures with dual cameras, faster 4G LTE modem connectivity and extended battery life.
AI company Mobvoi also plans to launch its next-generation Tic Watch Pro this year, while Suunto president Heikki Norta has announced that Suunto also looks forward to working with Qualcomm on the new Wear 4100 platform.
We’d expect to hear more about other brands supporting this smartwatch