At its Computex 2016 media event, Qualcomm has officially introduced the Snapdragon Wear 1100 processor, a new SoC designed for IoT and wearable applications requiring both ultra-low power and the ability to be always connected.
Qualcomm already has a Snapdragon Wear 2100 to cater to the smartwatch market. Snapdragon Wear 1100 is designed for applications/devices that are more specific. For example, fitness trackers and other wearable devices do not have or require a graphics-intensive display. This chip is about 50% smaller in surface area when compared with previous Qualcomm products.
They do benefit from GPS positioning and communications, in addition to computing capabilities. Devices using the Snapdragon Wear 1100 would typically require less memory and storage as well. All of this contributes to making the surface area as small as possible. With an estimated 55 square millimeter area, it substantially small.
Snapdragon Wear 1100 has a built in location system that can use GPS, but also cellular triangulation to locate the user. It obviously has 3G/LTE communications as well, which allows it to communicate worldwide (certified in ~130 markets). Interestingly enough, it is LTE Cat1 which is used in this product, but it’s a trade-off that is commonly made in the IoT world because it works well enough, and requires less surface area.
This also signals that from now on, everything that LTE can get into every IoT product. Qualcomm says that this new chip is in production today, and there are already a few OEMs working on end-user products slated for arrival “later this year.”
Snapdragon Wear 1100 is the smallest and lowest-power chip with an integrated modem that Qualcomm ever made. Now, we’re curious to see what kind of products it will power.
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