Future Apple Vision Pros may sport motorized lens adjustment systems

A new patent filing hints that future Apple Vision Pros may sport a motorized lens system to automatically adjust the display to different users’ faces.

About the new patent filing

Apple has filed for a patent (number US 20240192462 A1) for “Electronic Devices With Movable Optical Assemblies.” In the filing, Apple notes that, as electronic devices have components such as displays and lenses, it can be challenging to customize such devices for different users.

For example, different users have different spacings between their eyes, which are sometimes referred to as interpupillary distances. To accommodate users with different interpupillary distances, future Vision Pros may be provided with movable optical assemblies.

Summary of the patent

Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent filing: “A head-mounted device may include optical assemblies for presenting images to a user. Motors may be used to adjust the spacing between the optical assemblies to accommodate different interpupillary distances. The force with which the motors move the optical assemblies towards a central nose bride portion of the device may be limited. 

“The force may be limited using a clutch such as a magnetic clutch or a physical clutch based on structures that decouple from each other to limit the force. The force may also be limited by monitoring the force and halting the motors in response to detection of a given amount of force. Sensor measurements and electrical motor load measurement may be used in measuring the force. If desired, motor operation may be controlled by a user-operated button.”

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