Apple wants you to be able to “smart shop” by using smart gestures on an Apple Watch. The tech giant has been granted a patent for “Smart Shopping and Information Collection by Natural Gesture Using UWB.”
About the patent
The patent relates generally to providing a “smart shopping experience” using wireless communication. Smart shopping may be implemented using a device (e.g., a kiosk, a mobile device owned by a patron on which a retailer’s software is installed) that enables adding desired items or objects to a checkout list. However, Apple says the device may lead to “inefficiencies” in the smart shopping experience, such as contact by and reuse of the device by multiple patrons (thus providing a transmission point of diseases that may be spread by contact), lines forming to use the device, crowd-building, or other undesirable conditions that may disrupt the smart shopping experience.
Apple’s idea is for an Apple Watch to be able to use smart gestures that, via ultra-wideband, to get info and purchase items at its retail stores and other shops. Or it could respond to menu items in a restaurant. Of course, such items would have to be equipped with, or located near, sensors that could detect and respond to smart gestures.
Summary of the patent filing:
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “Smart gesturing may facilitate smart shopping and other contactless experiences by enabling a user to perform a natural gesture toward one or more desired items with or while wearing a wearable or non-wearable electronic device. The electronic device may identify the smart gesture, and determine the one or more desired items are indicated by the smart gesture.
“The electronic device may identify the desired items by receiving location data of multiple items, determining a vector based on a first position a second position of the smart gesture, extending the vector to a location, and using the location data to determine which item or items correspond to the location. If more than one item is indicated by the smart gesture, the electronic device may enable selection of the items and, if at least one item is selected, provide information on the selected items or enable additional interaction with the selected items.”
