Future Apple Watches may interact with the Apple Vision Pro thanks to specialized watchbands. Apple has been granted a patent (number US 11998090 B1) for a “WatchBand With Markers.”
About the patent
The patent relates generally to markers for computer-generated reality, and, more particularly, to watch bands or other wearable devices that include markers for computer-generated reality. In the patent Apple notes that devices can provide a mixed reality (MR) environment in which a simulated environment is designed to incorporate sensory inputs from the physical environment, or a representation thereof, in addition to including computer-generated sensory inputs (e.g., virtual objects).
In some MR environments, computer-generated sensory inputs may respond to changes in sensory inputs from the physical environment. Also, some electronic systems for presenting an MR environment may track location and/or orientation with respect to the physical environment to enable virtual objects to interact with real objects (that is, physical articles from the physical environment or representations of them).
Apple’s idea is for be used, held, or worn by a user to display visual information to the user. The electronic system 10 can be used as a computer-generated reality (CGR) system, a virtual reality (VR) system, an augmented reality (AR) system, and/or a mixed reality (MR) system. For example, the electronic system 10 can include a head-mountable device 100 to display visual information to the user. As can be appreciated, other devices, such as a mobile phone, a tablet computing device, or other computing device can be used as to display information to the user and as a computer-generated reality (CGR) system, a virtual reality (VR) system, an augmented reality (AR) system, and/or a mixed reality (MR) system.
Summary of the patent
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “Systems of the present disclosure can provide a watch band that provide a marker pattern to a computer-generated reality device. The watch band can include structures or features that provide an identifiable marker pattern to the computer-generated reality device. The structures or features that provide the marker pattern can be invisible or imperceptible to the user. Structures or features of the watch band can include infrared reflective thread, visually obscured markers, or lenticular lens assemblies.”
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