Qualcomm Intros New Wearable and Modem Chips

Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon Wear Elite chipset for high-end wearable devices, as well as the X105 5G cellular modem and FastConnect 8800 Wi-Fi / Bluetooth modem. The Snapdragon Wear Elite is designed for smartwatches, pins, pendants, and other wearables, as well as more stationary "hub" devices. It supports six-radio connectivity, including 5G RedCap, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NB-NTN satellite, UWB, and GNSS (GPS). Its Hexagon NPU supports on-device AI models with up to 2 billion parameters. It also has an eNPU for always-on AI. Qualcomm claims it is the fastest wearable platform on the market. The company names Google, Motorola and, Samsung as partners "supporting the platform". The X105 5G modem-RF chipset sports a new RF transceiver that uses 30% less power and is 15% smaller. It also introduces 5G over NTN, for satellite connectivity that includes voice, data, and more, not just basic messaging. Qualcomm says it is also the first chipset to support quad-band GNSS (GPS, etc.). Although Qualcomm doesn't expect to create any actual 6G hardware before 2028, the company says the X105 "lays the groundwork for 6G development". Finally, the FastConnect 8800 chipset supports the very newest local-area radio standards, including Wi-Fi 8, Bluetooth 7, UWB, and Thread. It also supports newer features of those standards, such as Bluetooth Channel Sounding and Wi-Fi Ranging. A new 4x4 Wi-Fi radio configuration enables peaks speeds of up to 11.6 Gbps, and gigabit speeds at up to the 3x the range. Qualcomm typically introduces dedicated modem chips like these with the most advanced features, then later integrates those modems into new Snapdragon processor chips for phones and similar devices.