Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear Elite will power these next-generation smartwatches
The new platform promises a huge leap in performance, helping to usher in a new era of AI hardware
Qualcomm used MWC 2026 to unveil Snapdragon Wear Elite, an advanced platform designed to turn wearables into active participants in AI.
While the previous W5+ Gen 2 was relegated to the ‘high-end’ category, the Elite branding marks Qualcomm’s new premium category. The goal is to enable a future network of smart watches, AI pins, and pendants that can process complex tasks locally instead of constantly tethering to a smartphone or the cloud.
The most important technical change is the inclusion of a dedicated Hexagon NPU (neural processing unit). This allows the chip to run billions of AI models directly on the device at speeds of up to 10 tokens per second.
In practical terms, this enables real-time health logging, on-device transcription, and AI agents that can truly perform tasks across applications. Interestingly, Qualcomm has also moved away from the traditional co-processor design (well known for enabling multi-day battery life in the last generation of Android smartwatches).
This is replaced by an eNPU or AI accelerator that is placed between a series of low-power ‘islands’. These islands handle always-on functions such as keyword detection and task recognition with 30% better efficiency than the previous generation.
On the raw performance side, the Snapdragon Wear Elite is built on the 3nm process and presents a big.LITTLE design on the wrist for the first time.
It features a ‘big’ 2.1 GHz core to handle the heavy lifting, such as app launch and multitasking, resulting in a 5x increase in single CPU performance. The Adreno GPU also sees a 7x boost, which Qualcomm says will ultimately deliver a smooth 60 FPS on wearable 1080p displays.
Connectivity is equally robust, including UWB for digital key support and NB-NTN for two-way satellite messaging when mobile signals fail.
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The platform has already secured the support of Google, Samsung, and Motorola.
Google has confirmed that the chip is essential for the next generation of Wear OS, while Motorola is using the platform to develop Project Maxwell, whose AI-perceptive concept was first teased at CES.
“Incorporating the new Snapdragon Wear Elite platform, the next generation Galaxy Watch will be the perfect health companion.” said InKang Song, Executive Vice President and Head of Technology Strategy Group, MX Business at Samsung Electronics.
“This marks an important step in our ongoing efforts to deliver a more efficient and personalized experience, right from your wrist.”
That confirms the chip will be used in the next generation of Samsung Galaxy Watch devices, with the Galaxy Watch 9 and Ultra 2 rumored to arrive in early July. And given recent history—and the fact that Xiaomi’s recently announced Watch 5 runs on the older W5+ Gen 2—it’s possible that this will serve as a starting point.
And while we were able to get our hands on a nifty reference device (shown above) at Qualcomm’s stand at MWC—which included a built-in camera—we’ll have to wait to see what features brands choose to power the next-generation chip.
