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Google Targets Smart Watch Market by Buying Fitbit
November 04, 2019
 
Google’s Android OS for smartwatches, Wear OS, isn’t nearly as successful as Android for smartphones, tablets, or televisions, and Google was chided for not having enough confidence to launch its own smartwatch hardware or for barely giving Wear OS the time of day at its big developer conference, or because Qualcomm failed to design a competitive smartwatch SoC. This logic is suspect as Google didn’t have a smartphone when Android was released and still doesn’t sell a TV. Smartwatches from Samsung, Huawei, and Apple, with their custom operating systems and SoCs, tend to have much better battery life than smartwatches with Wear OS and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 2100 or 3100. Qualcomm’s current wearable platforms are manufactured on a 28nm fabrication process; in comparison, Samsung’s Exynos 9110, found in the Galaxy Watch series, is manufactured on a 10nm fabrication process. Qualcomm may be bridging the gap with its next SoC for wearables, however, and it could come in the form of the Snapdragon Wear 3300. Qualcomm’s next wearable chipset was announced in July when WinFuture reported on the existence of two chipsets in a prototyping stage. It was believed that one of the chipsets could be marketed as the Snapdragon Wear 2700 and the other the Snapdragon 429 Wear, but the chipsets were still very early in development and there was no indication of when they would launch. XDA Recognized Developer arter97, said that Qualcomm is preparing a chipset based on the mid-2018 Snapdragon 429 mobile platform, and it’ll likely be called the Snapdragon Wear 3300. Over on the Code Aurora Forum, where Qualcomm uploads the Linux kernel source code for its various chipsets, a commit was uploaded that adds a device tree for a “SDW3300 device.” The device tree source (DTS) file that was uploaded is titled “sdw3300-bg-1gb-wtp.dts,” and the code indicates the new platform is based on the Snapdragon 429, code-named “Spyro.” The Qualcomm Snapdragon 429 was introduced in mid-2018 as a 12nm chip with 4 ARM Cortex-A53 CPU cores clocked at up to 1.95GHz. Qualcomm will likely pair these 4 CPU cores with a low-power co-processor, a PMIC, an integrated DSP, and other components to form the new Snapdragon Wear platform. The biggest problem with the Snapdragon Wear 3100 was that its main application processor was still the 4 ARM Cortex-A7 CPU cores fabricated on a 28nm process, so the new wearable SoC should be much more power-efficient and thus provide better battery life. Paired with 1GB of RAM, future Wear OS smartwatches will also perform better than ever. All of discussion about Google’s lack of presence in the smart watch market may become mute, as Alphabet Inc made an offer to acquire U.S. wearable device maker Fitbit Inc. Fitbit shares rose 27% on the news of the original offer, giving the company a market capitalization of $1.4 billion. But the deal for Fitbit closed at $2.1b, even as its dominant share of the fitness tracking sector continues to be chipped away by cheaper offerings from companies such as China’s Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and Xiaomi Corp. Fitbit cut its 2019 revenue forecast in July, blaming disappointing sales of its newly launched cheapest smartwatch Versa Lite. The watch is priced at $160, compared with $200 for the full version. It can track workouts and heart rate but lacks features such as the ability to store music directly. In August, Fitbit said it had signed a contract with the Singapore government to provide fitness trackers and services in a health program it said could reach up to 1 million users.  Fossil Group Inc said in January it would sell its intellectual property related to smartwatch technology under development to Google for $40 million. Google’s plans for these assets are not clear. 
 

• Expectations existed for Google to make an entry and offer a premium first-party smartwatch - a Google Watch/Pixel Watch.

• The rumored Watch expected at its event this month, based on Fossil’s IP didn’t happen  
• If Google does release something, it could be a generation or further behind Apple’s evolving Watch. Yet if Google doesn’t release something, it can never quite get started in catching up.
• Google’s Wear OS software has been closer to life-support than an evolving platform delivering anything cutting edge. Renowned for weak battery life, Google rarely gives Wear OS much attention, even at its developer conferences. Samsung’s Tizen and Apple watchOS are leading the way.
• Fitbit has a strong community, a quality app, and, loads of user data that is potentially attractive to Google, given its ways with data.
• Fitbit also has its own silicon, and software called Fitbit OS.
• But Google probably needs Apple-level tie-ins between silicon and software to get an Apple Watch level experience.