Qualcomm says its Snapdragon Wear 3100 is capable of supporting Google Wear
At Google I/O 2021, Google and Samsung announced Wear. This is a new partnership and collaboration between both companies that will see Google’s Wear OS get revamped and rebranded, where it will combine the best aspects of both Wear OS and Tizen together. It sounds good and holds a lot of promise, but there is the question of legacy users.
Now, Fossil had previously suggested that they will not be upgrading its older Wear OS devices to the new Wear platform, leaving us to wonder if it could be due to incompatible hardware. After all, the new Wear platform is expected to introduce a bunch of new features that might need more powerful hardware and sensors than what’s already available, but maybe not.
According to XDA, Qualcomm has confirmed to them that its 3-year old Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset along with its new 4100 and 4100+ chipsets actually support the new Wear platform. This seems to suggest that whether or not your current Wear OS smartwatch gets upgraded to the new Wear platform could be up to your device’s manufacturer to decide. The spokesperson was quoted as saying:
“We are working with Google on bringing Wear OS 3.0 to Snapdragon Wear 4100+ and 4100 platforms. Snapdragon Wear 3100, 4100+ and 4100 platforms are capable of supporting Wear OS 3.0, but we are not discussing any specifics at this time.”
This is good news because it means that those who don’t plan on upgrading anytime soon should, at least in theory, be able to get upgraded to Wear, so it remains to be seen what manufacturers decide to go.
Source: XDA