Apple has filed for a patent for a “hub station for wearable accessories” such as Apple Watch bands, headphones, face shields for the Vision Pro, and more.
About the patent filing
The patent filing relates generally to wearable accessories and specifically to hub stations that organize, support, and communicate with such wearable accessories. In the patent filing, Apple notes that wearable accessories are designed in a variety of shapes and sizes with a variety of features and customizations to support connectivity in physical environments, virtual environments, and co-presence (both real and virtual) environments.
Wearable accessories can include head-mounted displays, temple arms or headbands, light seals or face seals, power packs, cords or cables, input devices, headphones, smart watches, and other wearable or holdable devices. Apple says that identification, coordination, and organization of personalized versions of such wearable accessories can be complicated by the number, size, and individual capability of various types of wearable accessories.
The company’s idea is for a hub station that includes a housing with accessory areas and hub indicators associated with at least some of the accessory areas. Each hub indicator could be configured to provide a notification associated with a wearable accessory disposed on a respective accessory area, and registration devices associated with at least some of the accessory areas. Each registration device configured to orient a wearable accessory to a respective accessory area.
Summary of the patent filing
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent filing: “Hub stations for wearable accessories include accessory areas, some accessory areas including receptacles configured to receive and support the wearable accessories. The hub stations include hub indicators associated with respective receptacles or accessory areas. The hub indicators are configured to provide indications designating at least one of user information for, a charge level of, or an availability of a wearable accessory supported by associated receptacles or accessory areas. The hub stations include processors configured to receive notifications for the wearable accessories and send instructions to activate the associated hub indicators based on the notifications.”
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