Qualcomm launches new Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program

Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. recently outlined its overarching vision of the wearables space while highlighting several significant Snapdragon Wear Platform milestones. The company also announced that more than 60 wearable industry leaders — such as Arm, BBK, Fossil, Oppo, Verizon, Vodafone, and Zebra — will participate in its new program.

Rapid wearables
The wearables segment has been growing and segmenting at a rapid pace with products targeted for kids, teens, adults, and seniors across consumer and enterprise use cases.

“The wearables market grew 21% year-over-year and shows no signs of slowing down,” said Jitesh Ubrani, research manager, WW Mobile Device Trackers, IDC. “Innovative form factors continue to emerge as consumers demand new use cases in wearable devices. The smartwatch segment is going well beyond health and fitness tracking, expanding across consumer and enterprise segments, and further fueling growth of the category.”

Snapdragon wear
Qualcomm is continuing to invest in new Snapdragon Wear platforms to meet the diverse needs of customers across a multitude of OSs with its unique hybrid architectural approach, range of software releases, and reference designs.

“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, smart wearables, Qualcomm Technologies. “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.”

Over the last five years, the company has shipped 40+ million units across 100+ countries, collaborated with 75+ device manufacturers and 25+ service providers while shipping 250+ wearables products — that is one new product, on average, per week.

“We envision a hyper segmented world of wearables,” Kedia added, “we believe Qualcomm Technologies has an important role to play to accelerate this reality by bringing together our platforms and investments to the ecosystem.”

Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator program
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 Qualcomm 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.

“Qualcomm Technologies is actively collaborating with its customers and partners with the aim of meeting the ever-changing needs of the consumers,” said Kedia. “We are delighted to announce the Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program today and have an ambitious set of activities planned. Our goal is to provide a vehicle in the industry where ecosystem members collaborate to deliver differentiated wearable experiences and inject new energy and innovation in this exciting space.”

The collective goal of the members is to accelerate the wearables segment by delivering differentiated experiences at lower development cost and faster production time.

“The wearables market continues to evolve across a range of form factors and use cases which require efficient performance for complex and immersive experiences,” said Ketan Shah, senior director of XR and wearables, Client Line of Business, Arm. “Arm is focused on providing the compute performance and security needed to enable next-generation wearable devices, and through the Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program, we will work closely with the wider ecosystem to drive collaboration and change across the industry.”

The Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Accelerator Program is part of the Qualcomm Advantage Network and is open to companies developing solutions based on the Snapdragon Wear platforms. The inaugural Qualcomm Wearables Ecosystem Summit will be held in Fall 2021.

“Zebra Technologies has a long history of delivering innovative wearable solutions to meet the evolving needs of our Enterprise customers,” said Julie Johnson, VP of product management, Zebra Technologies. “As we continue to work with our customers in established and emerging use cases, we look forward to working with Qualcomm Technologies.”