Qualcomm recently unveiled its Snapdragon Wear Elite platform, a new processor designed to bring more AI processing directly onto wearable devices.
Wearables have long been limited by battery life, heat, and processing power. Built on a 3-nanometer process, the new platform is designed to improve efficiency while providing the performance needed to run more advanced AI workloads directly on the device rather than in the cloud.
One of its most notable features is a dedicated neural processing unit (NPU) that can run large AI models locally, enabling wearables to perform more tasks without relying on cloud processing.
It also supports 5G RedCap, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 6.0, and satellite messaging. Together, those capabilities help address many of the limitations that have held wearables back. Whether consumers ultimately benefit will depend more on how device makers implement it than on Qualcomm's silicon alone.
Let’s talk wearables this week. Then, we’ll close with my Product of the Week, a wearable device I use regularly that has become more useful than my smart glasses.
Before looking at the potential pitfalls, it's worth considering what this hardware makes possible. By moving more AI processing onto the device, wearables can reduce the latency, connectivity dependence, and battery drain associated with constant cloud communication. That makes a wider range of AI-powered features feasible on smaller devices.
Location awareness could also improve. More precise positioning may help wearables determine a user's location more accurately, even in dense urban environments, improving navigation, health monitoring, and other context-aware applications. Rather than simply recording a high heart rate, on-device AI could combine biometric, environmental, and activity data to determine whether a notification is actually meaningful before alerting the user or contacting emergency services.
Better storage, wireless connectivity, and processing could also make wearables more capable as standalone devices for music, communications, and navigation without requiring a nearby smartphone. Satellite connectivity may also improve emergency communications and location sharing in areas without cellular coverage.
Ultra-wideband (UWB) support could also expand digital key functionality already available in some vehicles, allowing compatible wearables to unlock and start a car without removing a phone or key.
Ultra-wideband technology can allow compatible smartwatches to unlock and start supported vehicles without using a physical key or smartphone. (AI-generated image)
The added processing power could also expand the use of enterprise applications such as body-worn cameras, industrial safety equipment, and other wearable devices that rely on on-device AI.
Despite those advances, I'm cautious. The technology industry is full of impressive engineering that failed because companies focused more on specifications than on the overall user experience. If this new platform is going to succeed, its hardware partners will have to avoid repeating those mistakes.
Consider IBM's early smartphone efforts, most notably the Simon Personal Communicator, as well as its modular PC concepts. IBM excelled at engineering but often designed products that appealed more to engineers than to everyday consumers. The technology was innovative, but the devices were bulky, the interfaces were complicated, and the overall experience failed to attract a broad audience.
Dell repeated…