Qualcomm's Snapdragon W5+ promises big speed and battery gains for Wear OS watches

Snapdragon-based Wear OS smartwatches haven't typically kept pace with rivals from Apple and Samsung. The Wear 4100+ was built using relatively old manufacturing processes, and the performance was rarely noteworthy. Qualcomm appears to have taken some of those criticisms to heart, though, as it's introducing Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 and W5+ Gen 1 chips (so long, Wear branding) that not only promise much-needed speed and battery life improvements, but might expand the range of wearables that use the company's technology.