Qualcomm Expands the Wearables Segment

Qualcomm outlined its vision of the wearables space while highlighting several significant Snapdragon Wear Platform milestones. In a press event, Qualcomm discussed its growing platform investments and announced the new Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program. The company also announced that more than 60 wearable industry leaders will participate in the program.

“Our Snapdragon Wear platforms are driving the industry, powering smartwatches for kids, seniors, and adults and smart trackers for pets and accessories,“ said Pankaj Kedia, senior director & global head of smart wearables at Qualcomm. “We are significantly growing our investments in leading edge ground-up silicon, platforms, and technologies and plan to roll out new Snapdragon Wear platforms across segments over the next year to meet our long-term vision.“

Qualcomm is continuing to invest in new Snapdragon Wear platforms to meet the diverse needs of customers across a multitude of OSs with its hybrid architectural approach, range of software releases, and reference designs. “We envision a hyper segmented world of wearables,“ Kedia continued, “we believe Qualcomm has an important role to play to accelerate this reality by bringing together our platforms and investments to the ecosystem.“

The wearables segment holds considerable promise but also presents daunting challenges to be addressed in the industry. To facilitate collaboration amongst companies and accelerate solutions to these challenges, Qualcomm launched the Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program which is comprised of device manufacturers (ODMs), service providers, platform players, independent hardware and software vendors (IHVs and ISVs), and system integrators and will work together with OEMs to more easily develop and commercialize products and solutions.

The program brings together industry leaders to discuss industry trends, share new technology and product direction, hold training sessions, demonstrate concepts, launch products, and facilitate matchmaking sessions amongst the ecosystem players. The collective goal of the members is to accelerate the wearables segment by delivering differentiated experiences at lower development cost and faster production time.