Google’s smartwatch vary may lastly meet up with Samsung’s on efficiency in 2026 – supplied Samsung opts to face nonetheless for one more yr.
The upcoming Google Pixel Watch 4 is rumoured to be utilizing precisely the identical Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 chip because the Google Pixel Watch 3 earlier than it – and that’s already a reasonably outdated element.
In response to Android Authority, after a number of years of stagnation Qualcomm is lastly engaged on a brand new wearables platform. Certainly, this new chip might be the primary correctly bespoke Qualcomm wearables chip but, with prior examples basically taking the type of modified smartphone chips with further off-the-shelf elements.
Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 specs
This new chip, designated the SW6100 and codenamed Aspen, will probably be completely different.
Whether or not will probably be known as the W5 Gen 2 or the W6 Gen 1 is by the by – the essential half is that it’s going to be meaningfully higher. Which means a smaller, extra environment friendly manufacturing course of, a RAM controller that’s upgraded to help LPDDR5X (quite than the W5 Gen 1’s LPDDR4), and a brand new QCC6100 coprocessor.
The positioning claims that the CPU core configuration will embody one Arm Cortex-A78 core and 4 Arm Cortex-A55 cores. That’s a large improve on the W5 Gen 1’s 4 Cortex A53 cores and one Cortex M55 effectivity core.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Qualcomm’s enjoying catch-up
In fact, there’s an enormous caveat in all this. Qualcomm’s new wearable chip specification will characteristic the very same core set-up as Samsung’s Exynos W1000, which debuted in final yr’s Samsung Galaxy Watch 7.
With the lately unveiled Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 utilizing the identical chip as its predecessor, there’s each probability that subsequent yr’s Samsung Galaxy Watch 9 will transfer to a brand new and much more succesful chip.
In different phrases, simply as Qualcomm catches up with Samsung’s 2024 smartwatch chip, there’s an opportunity Samsung itself might be transferring on to a next-gen element for its 2026 smartwatch.