Ahead of its Galaxy Unpacked event, Samsung has announced the Exynos W920, its newest and most powerful wearable chip. The W920 will power the company’s upcoming smartwatch and will be a generational leap over previous processors from both Samsung and Qualcomm.
The W920 is the first wearable chip to be built on a 5nm extreme ultra-violet (EUV) process, and it offers upgrades in performance and battery life over previous chips, according to Samsung. With a pair of ARM Cortex-A55 cores and an Arm Mali G68 GPU, Samsung says this chip will improve CPU performance by 20% compared to its immediate predecessor, with a graphic performance that is 10 times better. This means it’ll launch apps faster, and interacting with UI elements will be smoother and more natural.
Samsung also notes that this chip will allow wearables to last longer. By adding a dedicated low-power display processor, the wearable will be able to minimize power consumption when users engage the Always On Display to catch up with notifications or even checking the time. Samsung didn’t say just how much longer we can expect this to keep a device powered on compared to previous iterations, but it won’t be long till we find out.
Other than LTE and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) L1 support, this new chip also is built for Google and Samsung’s unified wearable platform, and it gels with the overall goal of providing a smooth and modern wearables experience. Confirming earlier rumors, Samsung also confirmed that this chip is going to first ship on the Galaxy Watch 4.
“Wearables like smartwatches are no longer just a cool gadget to have. They’re now a growing part of our lifestyles to keep you fit, safe and alert,” Harry Cho, vice president of System LSI marketing at Samsung Electronics wrote in a post announcing the chip. “With the Exynos W920, future wearables will be able to run applications with visually appealing user interfaces and more responsive user experiences while keeping you connected on the go with fast LTE.”
The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic are expected to be announced tomorrow at Unpacked alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G, and Galaxy Buds 2.
The OnePlus Buds Clip are a new pair of open-ear earbuds built around a simple convenience. They join Sony’s LinkBuds Clip in the growing ear-cuff category, but either OnePlus bud can go on either ear.
Sensors recognize how the earbuds are being worn and route the audio channels accordingly. There’s no label to check before putting them on, and the feature also works when only one bud is used.
We buy fitness bands and activity trackers to keep tabs on our exercise, but it is easy to forget to start tracking or switch modes when moving between different activities. For Fitbit and Pixel Watch users, that could soon become a lot less annoying, as Google is rolling out a major upgrade to automatic activity tracking that can recognize more than 100 types of exercise, up from just 10 before.
Google first showed off the improved tracking earlier this month alongside the Fitbit Edge. It is now coming to Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, and Google claims the added context behind the system makes workout detection nearly twice as accurate while cutting missed activities by more than half. Fitbit Edge will support it too.