Future Apple Watches could alert you when their water resistant/waterproof seals start to degrade, as evidenced by a new patent filing for a “Seal Integrity Diagnostics System.”
About the patent filing
In the patent filing, Apple notes that electronic devices, such as watches and phones, are increasingly being used during water-based activities, for example, swimming, scuba diving, showering, and other water-based activities. Therefore, seal integrity plays an important role in the proper functioning of the devices as water ingress could damage the internal electronic components.
Although electronic devices are tested for seal integrity before shipping, they could become compromised during the course of their use because of wear and tear, cracks, corrosion, and the like. Apple wants the Apple Watch, and perhaps the iPhone, to alert users to such conditions.
Summary of the patent filing
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent filing: “An apparatus of the subject technology includes a housing, an audio sensor configured to detect an acoustic pressure in a cavity of the housing, and a processor configured to determine a level of a leak of the housing based at least in part on the acoustic pressure.”
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