So close to the real Dick Tracy smartwatch. Qualcomm today announced its latest smartwatch processor, the Snapdragon Wear 4100 chip. At least in terms of performance, future Wear OS smartwatches could surpass the Apple Watch 6.

The Snapdragon Wear 4100 chip significantly outperforms the Snapdragon 3100, the current Wear OS CPU of choice. According to Qualcomm, the 4100 will offer up to 85% better performance and 25% better battery life compared to the current processor.

Qualcomm is actually shipping two versions of the Snapdragon Wear 4100+ and Snapdragon Wear 4100; like the Snapdragon 3100, the Wear 4100+ uses a dual-processor setup, with the main chip handles the heavy lifting, while the co-processor handles less power consuming tasks such as ambient display and continuous heart rate monitoring. Both chips use a 12nm design, which is much smaller than the Snapdragon 3100's 28nm design.

The main processor is a quad-core Cortex A53 with a clock speed of 1.7 GHz. It is faster and can support features such as up to a 16MP camera, in addition to being able to download maps to the device. This is a feature that has not been seen in a smartwatch from a well-known brand since Samsung's Galaxy Gear 2.

The co-processor (QCC1110) for this Wear 4100 + has been enhanced to handle functions formerly designated as the primary processor, including the aforementioned heart rate monitoring, sleep tracking, location tracking, and Bluetooth 5.0. The new chip supports up to 64,000 colors, a big leap from the mere 16 colors supported by the Wear 3100 processor. This means that future Wear OS smartwatches will have more colorful displays, even in ambient mode. [Snapdragon Wear 4100+ will have both a main processor and a co-processor, while Snapdragon Wear 4100 will only have a main processor for smartwatch manufacturers who do not plan to include an ambient mode.

Qualcomm is currently shipping the Wear 4100 and will include it in its Imoo Z6 Ultra and Mobvoi Tic Watch Pro 3 smartwatches for children. However, Qualcomm has said that for the time being it will continue to sell the older 3100 chip alongside the 4100.

It will be interesting to see how well the Wear 4100 chip performs, but its ultimate success will depend on whether Google can update its Wear OS platform and make it more attractive to consumers. dozens of Wear OS smartwatches but few are distinguishable from the rest, except for their physical design.

According to Strategy Analytics, Apple and Samsung currently dominate smartwatch sales, with Garmin in third place. Together, the two companies account for 77% of the market, but none of them use the Wear OS.