In February, Qualcomm ushered in its SnapDragon Wear line with the 2100 system-on-chip (SoC) designed as the brain for multi-purpose wearable devices such as smartwatches. At Computex 2016 the company has extended the line with the SnapDragon Wear 1100 intended for smaller, targeted-purpose wearables.
Aimed at smaller wearables, such as fitness trackers and connected watches for children and the elderly, that can't necessarily accommodate large batteries, the new processor boasts low power features, including a Power Saving Mode (PSM), to prolong battery life. For connectivity there's a LTE/3G modem, with support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
In terms of security, there's a hardware random number generator, cryptographic engine and TrustZone built into the chipset, along with an integrated applications processor for Linux-based apps.
Front and center is Qualcomm's integrated location engine, iZat, which provides detailed location information through multi-GNSS and cell-ID positioning, and supports geofencing applications for keeping track of pets, kids or the elderly.
Qualcomm is collaborating with Aricent, Borqs, Infomark, and SurfaceInk to create reference platforms based on the chip to accelerate the development of devices by OEMs. Anda Technologies, inWatch and WeBandz have already announced target-purpose products based on these platforms.
The chip is commercially available now and shipping from this week.
Source: Qualcomm
