Qualcomm officially announced the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 wearable platform, which consists of two chips – a non-plus model that just debuted on the Google Pixel Watch 4 and a Snapdragon W5+ Gen 2 model with an additional co-processor.
The new SoC for wearables is still built on the same 4nm manufacturing process and features the same quad-core CPU with 4x Cortex-A53 cores like its predecessor from three years ago.
Still, the new SoC brings substantial connectivity improvements. It now supports NB-NTN, which stands for Narrowband Non-Terrestrial Network, allowing you to connect even if there’s no cellular connection. It’s designed to find help in rural areas if you are stuck in nature and you don’t even need your phone.
Additionally, Qualcomm introduces the GPS positioning accuracy by 50% with its Location Machine Learning 3.0. You will mostly see benefits in dense urban environments.
The modem’s size has been reduced by 20% and it draws less power – both are significant improvements in the world of smart wearables.
Finally, the Plus variant adds a 22nm node-based co-processor that takes care of essential processes while the main SoC shuts down and preserves power.