Apple patent involves user comfort monitoring on the upcoming Vision Pro

Apple has been granted a patent (number US 11762457 B1) for “user comfort monitoring and notification.” The goal is to make sure users are comfortable wearing the upcoming Vision Pro.

About the patent

The US$3,499 “Spatial Computer” will, according to Apple, be available in “early” 2024. However, it will, apparently, only be available in limited quantities at first. 

Apple’s patent involves systems, methods, and devices for assessing the comfort state of users viewing content. The tech giant says that a user’s comfort state while viewing content on an electronic device can have a significant effect on the user’s experience. 

For example, a user may experience an increase or a decrease in comfort state while using a head-mounted device (HMD) in a computer-generated reality (CGR) environment, such as watching entertaining content or interacting with other users. 

Improved techniques for assessing the comfort state of a user viewing and interacting with content may enhance the user’s enjoyment of the content. Apple’s plan is that, based on determining the user’s comfort state, content creators and display systems may be able to provide better and more tailored user experiences.

Summary of the patent

Here’s Apple’s summary of the patent: “Some implementations disclosed herein present multimedia content to a user, identify a comfort state of the user (e.g., happy, unhappy, distressed, etc.) based on body data of the user (e.g., facial expressions, hand movements, physiological data, etc.), and update the multimedia content based on the identified comfort state.”