1 LTE-capable Google Pixel smartwatch costs $123 to make, finds report

The cost of making one LTE-capable Google Pixel watch is estimated to be $123, which is a big leap from the previous Fitbit smartwatches, according to a new report.

Samsung not only provides the highly integrated main chipset but also supplies the LTE transceiver and other paired components, collectively accounting for around 20 per cent of the total bill of materials (BoM) cost.

"BOE, which is the exclusive supplier of the smartwatch's custom 1.2-inch-diameter OLED display, captures over 14 per cent of the total cost to rank second in terms of cost contribution," according to Counterpoint Research.

Based on their analysis, the Exynos 9110, manufactured at Samsung Foundry's 10nm process node, is the main processor.

The co-processor is NXP's MIMXRT595S. It is an Arm Cortex-M33-based MCU with DSP and GPU cores.

The combined cost of the two processors and Kingstone 32GB+2GB ePoP memory accounts for nearly 27 per cent of the total BoM cost, the report noted.

Another key functional block of the Google Pixel Watch is the 1.2-inch "Always-on" OLED display.

As a smartwatch with healthcare and fitness features, the Pixel Watch is equipped with multiple sensors, including a 6-axis inertial sensor and a digital compass (both from STMicroelectronics), an altimeter, an ambient light sensor (ALS) and a light encoder to enable the haptic crown.

In addition, the heart rate monitoring system consists of Texas Instruments' analog front end (AFE) and three sets of infrared LED and photodetector, which is behind the ECG feature, the report said.

"Through the deep collaboration with Samsung, Google is likely to empower its next-generation Pixel Watch with a more powerful, integrated, intelligent and secure processing platform," it added.

--IANS

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