Apple patent filing involves user alerts for ‘Apple Glasses’ users

Apple has filed for a patent (number 20210256227) for a “system and method for user alerts during an immersive computer-generated reality experience.” It involves the rumored “Apple Glasses,” an augmented reality/virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD).

Background of the patent filing

Basically, it’s a safety feature for such a device. In the patent filing, Apple notes that users of a HMD may be subject to varying levels of immersion in a virtual or augmented environment. HMDs may present images and audio signals to a user, which, to varying degrees, may impair a user’s ability to concurrently detect events in their physical surroundings. Apple doesn’t want an Apple Glasses user to get hurt while involved in a computer-generated scene or game.

Summary of the patent filing

Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent filing: “Systems and methods for computer-generated reality user hailing are described. Some implementations may include accessing sensor data captured using one or more sensors; detecting a person within a distance of a head-mounted display based on the sensor data; detecting a hail event based on the sensor data; and responsive to the hail event, invoking an alert using the head-mounted display.”

FIG. 1 is an illustration of an example of a “hailing scenario” with Apple Glasses.