Qualcomm Announces Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 Chips With Satellite Connectivity

Qualcomm unveiled today its new Snapdragon W5 and W5+ Gen 2 chips, which will power a new generation of wearables devices including Google’s Pixel Watch 4. Qualcomm’s latest wearable chips add Narrowband Non-Terrestrial Network (NB-NTN) support for emergency satellite communication, and they also improve GPS positioning accuracy with machine learning.

The Snapdragon W5 and W5+ Gen 2 chips both use a 4nm architecture with an optimized radio frequency front end, allowing for a ~20% reduction in size and lower power consumption. Both chips support LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3, and NB-NTN satellite connectivity. However, the W5+ Gen chip also features a low-power co-processor to enhance machine learning capabilities and support new off-road use cases.

According to Qualcomm, its Location Machine Learning 3.0 technology can improve GPS positioning accuracy by up to 50% compared to its W5 Gen 1 wearable platform released back in 2022. The addition of NB-NTN support will also make the Google Pixel Watch 4 the first smartwatch on the market to support emergency satellite communications.

“We’re excited to have the Snapdragon W5 Gen 2 powering the new Google Pixel Watch 4, delivering high performance, delightful experiences, and potentially life-saving capabilities,” said Sandeep Waraich, Sr. Director, Product Management for Google Wearables today. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is also expected to bring satellite connectivity to its Apple Watch Ultra 3, which is expected to be announced in September alongside the iPhone 17 series.