Mobvoi is one of the few companies currently producing smartwatches with Google’s Wear OS platform. The TicWatch Pro 3 and TicWatch E3 were released last year, and both are equipped with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 4100 chipset. However, over the past few months, Mobvoi has claimed on product pages that both watches have the improved Wear 4100+ chip.
The TicWatch Pro 3 and TicWatch E3 were both advertised as using the Snapdragon Wear 4100 chip when they were released. However, Qualcomm also sells the Wear 4100+ chipset, which has an additional co-processor that improves battery life. Even though both the 4100 and 4100+ were announced in 2020, there are still no Wear OS watches with the improved 4100+ chip — the Fossil Gen 6 will be the first when it starts shipping later this month. Samsung recently started selling the Galaxy Watch 4, but that watch uses an Exynos chip instead of Qualcomm hardware.
Mobvoi’s product pages for the TicWatch Pro 3 and TicWatch E3 now state that both watches use the upgraded Wear 4100+ chip, instead of the Wear 4100. It’s not clear exactly when the change occurred, but an archived version of the TicWatch Pro 3 Amazon page from July 17th lists the 4100, while the current page mentions the “Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 4100+ Dual System Platform.” Similarly, Mobvoi’s website in March had the original specifications, while the current page says the TicWatch Pro 3 has a Wear 4100+ chip. The same change also occurred on product pages for the TicWatch E3.
TicWatch Pro product page from March 30, 2021 (source).
TicWatch Pro product page from September 24, 2021 (source).
NotebookCheck noticed the change on September 21st, and later purchased a new TicWatch E3 to test the supposedly new hardware. However, the site later reported that the watch still used a Wear 4100 chip, and the product packaging still said “Snapdragon Wear 4100” in several locations. It’s possible the publication received a watch from an older batch (assuming there is indeed an updated batch), but Mobvoi did not respond to inquiries from NotebookCheck, and as of the time of publishing, the company has not provided XDA with any information either.
One person on Reddit reportedly sent an email to Mobvoi’s customer support and received the following response:
“Dear Joma309,
Thank you for reaching out to the Mobvoi support team!
Kindly please be informed that “4100+” actually means “4100+ Dual System Platform”, it’s our mobvoi customized 4100, and there is no any difference with the previous 4100.
As always, thank you for supporting Mobvoi. If you have any further questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us again.
Best regards,
The Mobvoi support team”
Customer support responses should always be taken with a pinch of salt. However, if this is true, that would be deceptive advertising, at the very least. Mobvoi has not stated what changes (if they exist) it has made to the Snapdragon Wear 4100 chip. Neither watch appears to have the main feature of the 4100+, which is the Cortex M0 co-processor.
Meanwhile, Mobvoi appears to be working on a ‘TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS,’ which is expected to actually have a Snapdragon Wear 4100+ chip.
The post Mobvoi is misleading customers about the TicWatch Pro 3 and TicWatch E3’s hardware appeared first on xda-developers.
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