Over the years, Qualcomm has released several processors for Wear OS watches, but they’ve often lagged behind in performance and power efficiency. The Snapdragon W5 series, launched in 2022, marked a long-overdue advancement. Yet since then, Qualcomm has been unusually silent about what comes next.
Now, early details have emerged about the next-gen Snapdragon chip for Wear OS, potentially branded as either “W5 Gen 2” or “W6 Gen 1.”
Major Changes Revealed
According to Android Authority, citing “credible evidence,” Qualcomm’s upcoming smartwatch processor will introduce three key upgrades:
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Shift from Samsung to TSMC for Chip ManufacturingThis manufacturing switch alone is expected to significantly improve battery efficiency, thanks to TSMC's superior fabrication process.
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Adoption of LPDDR5 RAMThe inclusion of faster DDR5 memory will lead to a modest but meaningful performance boost, making UI interactions and app launches smoother.
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Modern CPU Core ArchitectureThe chip is said to use a 1x ARM Cortex-A78 + 4x ARM Cortex-A55 configuration, replacing the outdated cores based on decade-old designs. While these aren't the absolute latest ARM cores, they represent a major upgrade over the current generation.
Still No Launch Date, But Signs Are Encouraging
There’s no confirmed release timeline for this chip, but just knowing it’s under development is good news for the Wear OS ecosystem.
Smartwatches using the current Snapdragon W5 series already offer decent performance and solid battery life, yet these upcoming changes suggest things could get dramatically better.
The report notes that the chip hasn’t entered mass production yet, which means a release is unlikely in the near term. As a result, the upcoming Pixel Watch 4 from Google will almost certainly still be based on the existing Snapdragon W5 chip.
Still, once this next-gen silicon arrives, it could mark the most significant evolution for Wear OS hardware in years.
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