Qualcomm Toq

Available now
4th September 2013

Qualcomm isn't a name that most consumers are familiar with, but their technologies are in almost every phone today including Qualcomm Snapdragon processors in smartphones and WCDMA circuitry in 3G devices. One of their recent areas of development has been the Mirasol low-power display which uses a flexible membrane technology to turn on and off the colours in its pixels to create a display that can be left on all the time and works well in sunlight.

The Mirasol touchscreen display is the key feature with the Qualcomm Toq (presumably as in "tick tock"), and although the actual explanation of how it works is rather complicated, it can be thought of as being a little like a colour version of the display in an eBook reader. Effectively, the Mirasol display solves the device's biggest power drain problem at a stroke.

Having made the Toq a very low drain device, the Qualcomm engineers then went one step further and gave it wireless charging. This means that you can charge the Toq just by placing it on the supplied case, and there are an optional pair of earbuds that work the same way.

Qualcomm says that the Toq can work with any Android smartphone running version 4.0.3 or above. Its exact features are not known, but we do know that it can control music playback, make phone calls and send messages. Qualcomm have also created a development environment to allow other applications to interact with the smartwatch too.

From what we can see, the feature list of the Qualcomm Toq is pretty short, especially when compared to the Galaxy Gear.  But on the other hand it is much easier to keep it charged up and use it.. well, as a watch.

Qualcomm say that the Toq should be available from Q4 2013. You can sign up for updates and see more details at toq.qualcomm.com.