It's not every day that we hear about new premium Wear OS hardware. In fact, of the last few premium Wear OS smartwatches to hit the market, the only one to ship with an up-to-date chipset was Mobvoi's TicWatch Pro 3 from September. Wear OS itself is finally getting some much-needed attention from Google, but what we also want to see is new hardware with Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear 4100 chip. Fortunately, it looks like we won't have to wait long for that to happen, as Mobvoi is allegedly gearing up to launch the TicWatch E3 with Qualcomm's latest wearable chipset.

If the TicWatch E3 sounds familiar, it's because we first heard of it back in April through a teardown of the Mobvoi app. A render of the device was included in the APK, but we didn't have any information on its software or internal hardware. Based on its name, we assumed it'll be the successor to the TicWatch E2, so we guessed it'll run Wear OS and launch at a lower price point than Mobvoi's flagship TicWatch Pro 3. Thanks to Russian Instagram user andrey_koftun who got his hands on the TicWatch E3 ahead of its release, we now know that it'll indeed run Wear OS. Better yet, the early hands-on reveals the wearable will be powered by the Snapdragon Wear 4100, making it the second ever Wear OS smartwatch to feature Qualcomm's most powerful wearable platform.

Early hands-on of the Mobvoi TicWatch E3. Credits: @andrey_koftun

In his hands-on video, andrey_koftun shows off the TicWatch E3, its box, and its charging cable. The TicWatch E3's design seems similar to the TicWatch Pro 3, with a round display, two buttons on the side, the lack of a rotating crown, and a silicone strap. In the description of the Instagram post, andrey_koftun says the device has a microphone and speaker but no OLED display. On the rear of the box, several key features of the smartwatch are listed, including the aforementioned Snapdragon Wear 4100 chipset, 2.5D curved display, IP68 rating, 20+ workout modes and TicMotion support, 24/7 monitoring for heart rate, blood oxygen saturation tracking, stress tracking, sleep tracking, and VO2 max tracking during runs. In the video, we can see that the charging cable attaches magnetically to the back of the watch just like with the TicWatch Pro 3.

We don't know the launch date, pricing, or availability of Mobvoi's TicWatch E3. However, Mobvoi is teasing the launch of a new smartwatch on June 16th, so we may see the product unveiled then.

Mobvoi isn't the only one allegedly working on a Wear OS smartwatch with the Snapdragon Wear 4100. A Motorola-branded smartwatch with this chipset is allegedly in the works, and we've heard that the OPPO Watch 2 will also feature the chip.