Wearable technology has come a long way from the basic step counter. Today’s devices monitor heart health, guide athletes through their training, keep lone workers safe, and help families stay connected — all while fitting into smaller and more convenient form factors than ever before. Behind many of these experiences is GNSS positioning, and the demands on that technology have never been higher.
On this page you can explore the wearables market, understand the unique positioning challenges these devices face, and discover how u-blox delivers the accuracy, power efficiency, and compact size that modern wearables demand.
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Wearables today serve a remarkably diverse set of needs. Across consumer and professional markets, accurate positioning is the common denominator that makes these applications work.
Hikers, cyclists, and adventurers rely on wearables for route navigation, distance tracking, and emergency location sharing if rescue or support is required. Positioning must be robust and power-efficient enough to last a multi- day expedition without needing to recharge.
Devices like smart glasses combine positioning with real-time contextual awareness, enabling assisted navigation and augmented reality overlays. These applications require a compact, lightweight GNSS solution including the antenna, with indoor detection to avoid wasting energy in buildings.
GNSS is the technology that turns a wearable into a location-aware device. It enables real-time tracking, distance and speed measurement, route tracking, altitude data, and geofencing — the building blocks of the majority of wearable applications on the market today.
As wearable technology has become more mainstream, consumer expectations for the technology rose. Nowadays, users expect wearables to provide them with:
Meeting those expectations in a device small enough to wear on your wrist, and power-constrained enough to last all day (or even longer), requires GNSS technology that is purpose-built for the challenge.
Delivering high-quality GNSS in a wearable is one of the more demanding challenges in consumer electronics. The constraints pull in multiple directions simultaneously, and trade-offs are unavoidable without the right technology.
The space available in most wearable devices is severely limited, and antenna size directly affects GNSS performance. Designing a module small enough to fit the form factor without compromising signal reception requires careful engineering at every level.
In a typical smartwatch, GNSS can account for a significant amount of total power draw during active use. Balancing continuous tracking against battery life is one of the central design challenges in the category, and users are unforgiving of devices that run out of power mid-activity.
Wearables are used everywhere: in dense urban centers with signal-reflecting buildings, in transition zones between indoor and outdoor spaces, and in motion-intensive activities like running, swimming or cycling. Each environment introduces its own positioning challenges, from multipath effects in city streets to the need for different movement models.
Consumer devices set high expectations for responsiveness. A user pressing ‘start’ on their run doesn’t want to wait for the device to acquire a GNSS signal. Fast Time-to-First-Fix (TTFF) is a direct contributor to user experience, and needs to be as short as possible.
Engineers developing wearable products must balance GNSS performance against cost, size, and design complexity. A solution that requires extensive custom RF work or a complex antenna design may be impractical for a product with a mass-market price point or an aggressive development timeline.
u-blox approaches wearable GNSS with a clear set of priorities: ultra-low power consumption, compact design, and meter-level positioning accuracy in real-world conditions. Our solutions are engineered for the constraints of wearable devices, so you don’t have to compromise on performance to meet your size and battery targets.
Working with u-blox gives you a number of technologies designed specifically for wearable technology:
Short for low energy accurate positioning, LEAP uses smart signal selection, assisted GNSS data download and low update rate tracking to provide accurate positioning while using up to 50% less power than previous generations.
Learn more about LEAP
Robust multipath mitigation and dual-band signal processing mean u-blox modules perform in the environments where wearables are actually used: city streets, mixed terrain, and high-motion activities. You can promise your users accurate data with confidence.
Learn more about multipath mitigation
u-blox devices intelligently switch between L1 single-band operation and L1/L5 dual-band operation so that the L5 band isn’t used when it isn’t needed, reducing power usage without compromising accuracy.
Learn more about Selective L5
Our swimming mode is the result of decades of experience delivering accurate position in challenging environments. It enables you to build wearables that provide accurate position, swim distance and speed in open water, increasing the versatility of your product.
Learn more about swimming mode
u-blox’s SiP (System in Package) technology gives you miniaturized hardware, as small as a chip but with most external components already integrated. This helps reduce design complexity, saves valuable board space, and ultimately helps you get to market faster.
AssistNow helps secure GNSS signal faster by retrieving information such as satellite data and accurate time from wireless networks or the internet instead of from the satellite signals themselves. With AssistNow, time to first fix is reduced to a matter of seconds, even when GNSS positioning is poor.
Learn more about AssistNow
When indoors, GNSS signals are completely blocked, making any attempt to get GNSS positioning a waste of power. u-blox devices with the feature are able to sense when they are indoors, and stop searching for GNSS position until they are back outdoors.
Learn more about indoor detection
| Product | Package | Size (mm) | Indoor detection | LEAP | Multipath mitigation | Selective L5 | AssistNow |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UBX-M10150-CC | WLCSP | 2.39 x 2.39 x 0.36 | ● | ● | ● | ||
| UBX-F11070-CC | WLCSP | 2.39 x 2.39 x 0.36 | ● | ● | ●● | ● | ● |
| MIA-M10 | SiP | 4.5 x 4.5 x 1.0 | ● | ● |
u-blox is committed to staying ahead of the demands of wearables users and manufacturers. Our continued investment in power-efficient, scalable, and robust positioning solutions means that as wearable use cases evolve, the technology to support them will be ready — and engineers building the next generation of wearables will have a trusted partner to help them get there.
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