Qualcomm is not well known for making powerful chipsets for wearable devices, in fact, everyone knows that the company has not focused and paid attention to the smartwatch market for years. It seems like that may soon change, as the company may be working on an upgraded Wear 5100 chipset that could soon power more smartwatches.

After Google has announced its partnership with Samsung, Qualcomm later confirmed that it still plans to make new wearable chips. According to findings from XDA Developers, Qualcomm has uploaded new code to its Code Aurora Forum with the build ID “LAW.UM.2.0-00700-SW5100.0” and code-name “monaco.” “LAW” stands for “Linux Android Wear” while the “UM” likely stands for “Unified Modem”. The SW5100 is likely a short name for the new platform that’s currently under development, which could likely be the successor of the Snapdragon Wear 4100 series.

CAF-SW5100-monaco

(Image Credit: XDA Developers)

XDA Developers has analyzed the commit history and board configuration files and found that the “monaco” chipset is based on Qualcomm’s existing “bengal” platform. “Bengal” is the code name for the Snapdragon 662 and 460 platforms. It will reportedly use a quad-core chipset design with ARM Cortex-A73 cores, which will be a slightly upgraded chipset over the currently existing Snapdragon Wear 4100.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 4100 was announced just over a year ago, so the chances of us seeing the Snapdragon Wear 5100 anytime soon is highly unlikely, and it’ll likely take a lot longer to see it in new smartwatches. That being said, it gives us hope that Qualcomm is reportedly working on a successor. Hopefully, the company will take the smartwatch business a little more seriously as the competition and even Google speeds up the development of Wear OS 3.

What are your thoughts about the news of the upcoming new Snapdragon Wear 5100 chipset? Would you be interested in a slightly improved Wear 4100? Let us know in the comments!

Mobvoi TicWatch 3 Pro

It comes with Snapdragon Wear 4100 and it supports NFC. It has GPS built-in and has an advertised battery life of 3 days.