Apple has been granted a patent (number 11,218,824) for “cooling and noise control for a head-mounted device.” It involves the rumored “Apple Glasses,” an augmented reality/virtual reality head-mounted display.
About the patent
The goal of the invention is to make such a device comfortable to use. In addition to, of course, a lens, a HMD could have other outputs provided such as a speaker output and/or haptic feedback. A user may further interact with the head-mounted device by providing inputs for processing by one or more components of the head-mounted device. For example, the user can provide tactile inputs, voice commands, and other inputs while the device is mounted to the user’s head.
However, if the HMD gets hot or the audio is too loud or too soft, the experience of using it wouldn’t be satisfactory. Apple wants to avoid this with its Apple Glasses.
Summary of the patent
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “A head-mounted device can effectively manage heat while also managing noise output levels in a manner that preserves the user’s desired experience with the head-mounted device. The head-mounted device can manage sound levels of a cooling system based on detected a sound level of ambient noise in a vicinity of the head-mounted device.
For example, the head-mounted device can operate a fan at a speed that produces noise at a sound level that is low enough to be masked by the ambient noise perceived by the user. By further example, the sound level of a cooling system can be based on a sound level of a speaker of the head-mounted device providing audio to the user. By further example, other operational parameters of a cooling system can be controlled to manage noise at a sound level that is sufficiently low.”
About Apple Glasses
When it comes to Apple Glasses, such a device will arrive in 2022 or 2023, depending on which rumor you believe. It will be a head-mounted display. Or may have a design like “normal” glasses. Or it may be eventually be available in both. The Apple Glasses may or may not have to be tethered to an iPhone to work. Other rumors say that Apple Glasses could have a custom-build Apple chip and a dedicated operating system dubbed “rOS” for “reality operating system.”
