Qualcomm's next Wear OS chip could finally catch up to the Galaxy Watch 4

This is why competition is good.

What you need to know

• More details have emerged of the Snapdragon Wear 5100.
• The alleged chipset may be built using a more efficient 4nm node with support for up to 4GB of RAM.
• The Snapdragon Wear 5100 will have an additional "Plus" variant with a low-power co-processor.

It seems like Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear 4100 series is finally taking off as more wearable OEMs adopt the platform for their devices. However, a new report alleges details about Qualcomm's next chip, the Snapdragon Wear 5100, which could feature some notable improvements over its predecessor.

According to WinFuture, the new chipset will be built using four ARM Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.7GHz, along with an Adreno 702 GPU clocked at 700MHz. So far, this is in line with what we've heard so far about the Snapdragon Wear 5100, which suggests it may not be much of an upgrade over the Snapdragon Wear 4100, which features the same configuration.

However, WinFuture suggests that the chipset is being built on a 4nm process, which would make it much more efficient than the current chip's 12nm process. This would also put it just ahead of the Exynos W920 found in the Galaxy Watch 4, which is built using a 5nm process.

Additionally, the report indicates that Qualcomm is testing the chip with 2GB and 4GB of RAM, which would put it was above what we've seen from any of the best Wear OS watches we've seen this far. This means not only will Wear OS watches run more efficiently, but they'll also be able to handle more apps and processes without slowing down.

As with the current generation, Qualcomm is reportedly prepping two versions of a chipset, including a "Plus" variant with a low-powered QCC5100 co-processor. This chip is found in some of the best wireless earbuds and could enable some machine learning capabilities for voice assistant processing and ambient tracking features like sleep monitoring and continuous heart rate.

Despite being nearly two years old, Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear 4100 performs well on current Wear OS smartwatches and is even found in other wearables like smart glasses. This is likely why the company doesn't see the need for drastic changes with the upcoming chipset, with a focus on efficiency, something Wear OS has not been too good with. However, details for the Snapdragon Wear 5100 could change before it launches.

As for the launch, WinFuture doesn't seem to know when that could occur, but it could arrive alongside the wider launch of Wear OS 3 later this year.

Wear OS at its best

Samsung Galaxy Watch 4

$211 at Amazon $220 at Best Buy

The best gets even better

As the sole Wear OS 3 smartwatch, the Galaxy Watch 4 is one of the best wearables you can buy. It's fast, comes with a bevy of health and fitness tracking features, and works seamlessly with a Galaxy smartphone.

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