Apple Glasses · Hardware

The glasses may use a modified Apple Watch chip

Rather than designing a brand-new processor, Apple is reportedly adapting an Apple Watch S-series chip for its first smart glasses. The low-power design handles sensors, audio, and always-on tasks locally while the paired iPhone performs most of the heavy AI processing.

2 min readUpdated Sep 22, 2026

Apple Glasses Guide
Reported
61% track record
1 source, 2 outlets

What to know

What to know

Apple's smart glasses will use a chip based on the ones in Apple Watch, according to a May 2025 report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Watch chips use less power than the chips in an iPhone, iPad or Mac.

Using a low-power chip would help battery life, while the heavier AI work would be handed off to the paired iPhone, according to reports.

Apple has not announced the glasses or their chip.

How we know this

How we know this

What changed, newest first.

May 22, 2025Cult of MacDescribes the processor as a simplified Apple Watch chip
May 8, 2025Mark Gurman via BloombergBases the glasses processor on lower-power Apple Watch chips
Reported

Frequently asked

Frequently asked

Why would Apple use an Apple Watch chip?
A modified Watch chip is low-power, which suits a device with little room for battery or cooling. Heavier AI work is handed off to the paired iPhone.
Is the chip confirmed?
No. The modified Watch chip is from reports, not an Apple announcement.

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