The rumored “Apple Glasses” — an augmented reality/mixed reality head-mounted display (HMD) — may sport a Digital Crown a la the Apple Watch. Apple has been granted a patent (number 11,402,925) for “crown input and feedback for head-mounted devices.”
The smartwatch’s Digital Crown is Apple’s answer to the crown found on mechanical watches. Among other things, users can press the Digital Crown to return to the Home screen, much like the home button on iPhone.
About the patent
In the patent, Apple notes that a HMD can be worn by a user to display visual information within his/her field of view. The HMD device can be used as a virtual reality (VR) system, an augmented reality (AR) system, and/or a mixed reality (MR) system. A user may observe outputs provided by the head-mountable device, such as visual information provided on a display. The display can optionally allow a user to observe an environment outside of the head-mountable device.
Other outputs provided by the head-mountable device can include speaker output and/or haptic feedback. A user may further interact with the head-mountable device by providing inputs for processing by one or more components of the head-mountable device. One of the could be a Digital Crown.
Summary of the patent
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “A head-mountable device can provide a crown module having an input system that allows a user to provide inputs by rotating or otherwise applying torque to a crown of the crown module. The head-mountable device can interpret the rotation and/or torque as a user input. The crown module can further include a feedback system that provides localized haptic feedback at the crown. The haptic feedback can be effectively perceived by the user at the crown without causing the entire head-mountable device to vibrate against the head and/or face of the user.”
