The News: Qualcomm continues to strengthen its wearable partner ecosystem around its Snapdragon Wear 1300 Platform, purpose-built for cellular connectivity for wearable tracking devices. Read more about the Snapdragon Wear 1300 Platform here.
Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 1300 Platform: Cellular Connectivity for Wearable Tracking Devices
Analyst Take: The Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program designed with the goal of accelerating the adoption of wearables, continues to make inroads and impress. The market for IoT-connected devices is massive and is expected to grow at a fast clip over the next several years, with key pocket segments expected to grow faster than others.
Tractive, one of Qualcomm’s wearable ecosystem partners that makes trackers for pets is an excellent use case for one of these sub-markets within IoT. The company recently launched its Tractive Dog XL which is a tracking device meant for large-to-midsize pets. The device is outfitted with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 1300 Platform. A key benefit of the Tractive Dog XL device and associated software is that it allows the pet owner to track the pet’s daily routines, such as sleep and exercise. A key benefit of this is that it will allow the owner to monitor and detect patterns that may indicate the pet is having issues. Having the tracker for pet health purposes is great, but it would also be highly beneficial when owners lose their pets, which is also a frequent occurrence.
The Snapdragon Wear 1300 Platform is excellent for many wearables situations beyond pets. In fact, many people are also tracking assets such as luggage, purses, backpacks, etc.
How the Snapdragon Wear 1300 SoC Works
The Snapdragon Wear 1300 SoC is a multi-band, multi-mode device designed to support more than 23 global radio frequency bands. The Snapdragon Wear 1300 Platform includes an ARM Cortex 7 processor capable of up to 800 MHz supporting the ThreadX OS and AliOS Things RTOS. The Snapdragon Wear 1300 is outfitted with a 4G LTE modem that allows its vendor partners to create products targeting situations where cellular connectivity is needed but a handset device is not required.
The Snapdragon Wear 1300’s cellular Modem-RF is capable of peak download speeds up to 127 kbps, up to 588 kbps and peak upload speeds of up to 119 kbps, up to 158.5 kbps. The device location services offer GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou and GPS.
Looking Ahead for Qualcomm and IoT Wearables
Not surprisingly, Qualcomm continues to widen its wearable partner ecosystem across the board. With its Snapdragon Wear 1300 Platform targeting wearable IoT devices that need cellular connectivity coupled with excellent battery life, Qualcomm’s SoC delivers.
The future looks bright, and I look forward to seeing more innovations and use cases coming from the platform in the future.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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