You may one day be able to control a Vision Pro by moving your head

You may one day be able to control a Vision Pro by moving your head. Apple has been granted a patent (number US 12026302 B2) for “Controlling a Device Setting Using Head Pose.”

About the patent

In the patent, Apple notes that some electronic devices such as head-mounted devices include displays that are positioned close to a user’s eyes during operation (sometimes referred to as near-eye displays). The positioning of the near-eye displays may make it difficult to provide touch input to these displays. Accordingly, it may be more difficult than desired to control device settings on the head-mounted device.

Apple’s idea is for changes in head pose for Vision Pro users to be used to provide user input to the spatial computer. In particular, changes in head pose may be used to adjust a slider that is a visual representation of a scalar quantity of a device setting such as speaker volume or display brightness. 

While the user gazes at the visual representation of the scalar quantity of the device setting, the scalar quantity of the device setting may be updated based on the head pose of the user. This provides a method for the user to adjust a device setting without touching the display, according to Apple.

Summary of the patent

Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent: “A head-mounted device may use head pose changes for user input. In particular, a display in the head-mounted device may display a slider with an indicator. The slider may be a visual representation of a scalar quantity of a device setting such as volume or brightness. 

“Based on head pose changes, the scalar quantity of the device setting and the position of the indicator on the slider may be updated. The direction of a head movement may correspond to the direction of movement of the indicator in the slider. The scalar quantity of a device setting may only be updated when gaze input from a user targets the slider. The slider may be displayed in response to gaze input targeting an icon associated with the slider.”