It’s undeniable that there’s a growing focus of manufacturers to offer better smart wearable hardware, resulting in some rather-impressive smartwatches over the past couple of years. With that in mind, Qualcomm recently announced that it was working with Google to bring RISC-V based tech to wearables, which is a rather promising venture, so to speak.
With this, Qualcomm intends to develop a RISC-V system that will be able to work with Google’s Wear OS platform for smartwatches. RISC-V allows for manufacturers to design processors that are more power-efficient, while being able to sustain improved performance. This partnership will also see both companies continue to invest in Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear platforms, especially on Wear OS devices. Speaking about the partnership, Bjorn Kilburn, GM of Wear OS by Google states:
“Qualcomm Technologies have been a pillar of the Wear OS ecosystem, providing high performance, low power systems for many of our OEM partners… We are excited to extend our work with Qualcomm Technologies and bring a RISC-V wearable solution to market.”
Qualcomm isn’t a newcomer to the smartwatch game – in fact, the popular chip manufacturer has been working with different brands and manufacturers in bringing Snapdragon-branded processors to mainstream products, such as this year’s newest entries from Mobvoi and Xiaomi. Dino Bekis, vice President and General Manager for Qualcomm’s Wearables and Mixed Signal Solutions states:
“We are excited to leverage RISC-V and expand our Snapdragon Wear platform as a leading silicon provider for Wear OS. Our Snapdragon Wear platform innovations will help the Wear OS ecosystem rapidly evolve and streamline new device launches globally.”
Qualcomm and Google are the latest to join several other companies as well as other industry leaders in launching the RISC-V Software Ecosystem (RISE). Additionally, Qualcomm recently announced that it’s investing in a new company towards the development and engineering of RISC-V hardware.
For those unaware, RISC-V is an open-source instruction set architecture that allows companies to develop their own custom cores for hardware. Qualcomm says that RISC-V’s openness and flexibility benefits vendors, OEMs, end devices and consumers in the long run, allowing for more competition and innovation. At the moment, neither Google or Qualcomm mentioned any particular partner OEMs or product release dates, although we should get more info in the months to come.
In other Google wearable-related news, the company recently rolled out the much-awaited Wear OS 4 upgrade to the first-generation Pixel Watch. The new update comes with updates to accessibility features, notification delivery, health and safety, as well as fixes for bugs, performance, and battery life.
