Several Meta patents have been published by the U.S. and EU Patent Offices regarding their work on a future smartwatch, a next-gen wrist device to work with future XR Meta Headsets and more relating to various aspects of smartglasses.
In August 2021,Patently Apple posted an IP report titled "The U.S. Patent Office has Published Facebook's Patent behind their Future AR Glasses Wristband Input Device."
On April 11, 2024, the U.S. Patent Office published patent application 20240118749 advancing their wrist device titled "Systems for Calibrating Neuromuscular Signals sensed by a plurality of Neuromuscular-Signal Sensors."
Meta's patent relates to a wrist device for artificial-reality systems. Artificial-reality Such artificial-realities can include and/or represent virtual reality (VR), augmented reality, mixed artificial-reality (MAR), or some combination and/or variation one of these. For example, a user can perform a swiping in-air hand gesture to cause a song to be skipped by a song-providing API providing playback at, for example, a home speaker. An AR environment, as described herein, includes, but is not limited to, VR environments (including non-immersive, semi-immersive, and fully immersive VR environments); augmented-reality environments (including marker-based augmented-reality environments, markerless augmented-reality environments, location-based augmented-reality environments, and projection-based augmented-reality environments); hybrid reality; and other types of mixed-reality environments.
A hand gesture, as described herein, can include an in-air gesture, a surface-contact gesture, and or other gestures that can be detected and determined based on movements of a single hand (e.g., a one-handed gesture performed with a user's hand that is detected by one or more sensors of a wearable device (e.g., electromyography (EMG) and/or inertial measurement units (IMU)s of a wrist-wearable device) and/or detected via image data captured by an imaging device of a wearable device (e.g., a camera of a head-wearable device)) or a combination of the user's hands. In-air means, in some embodiments, that the user hand does not contact a surface, object, or portion of an electronic device (e.g., a head-wearable device or other communicatively coupled device, such as the wrist-wearable device), in other words the gesture is performed in open air in 3D space and without contacting a surface, an object, or an electronic device. Surface-contact gestures (contacts at a surface, object, body part of the user, or electronic device) more generally are also contemplated in which a contact (or an intention to contact) is detected at a surface (e.g., a single or double finger tap on a table, on a user's hand or another finger, on the user's leg, a couch, a steering wheel, etc.).
The different hand gestures disclosed herein can be detected using image data and/or sensor data (e.g., neuromuscular signals sensed by one or more biopotential sensors (e.g., EMG sensors) or other types of data from other sensors, such as proximity sensors, time-of-flight (ToF) sensors, sensors of an inertial measurement unit, etc.) detected by a wearable device worn by the user.
Meta's patent FIG. 1 below illustrates a default user worn position of a wrist-wearable device. The wrist-wearable device 110 can include one or more imaging devices or imaging sensors #1336, microphones #1375, speakers #1374, displays #1305 (e.g., a touchscreen, which can also be configured to receive one or more user inputs), one or more neuromuscular-signal sensors #115, memory #1380 (e.g., storage and RAM)), and/or one or more processors (e.g., central processing unit (CPU) #1379 and/or microcontroller unit).
In Meta's patent FIG. 6C above, the wrist-wearable device provides the neuromuscular signals sensed by the neuromuscular-signal sensors #115 to the signal analysis module #150 which adjusts analysis of neuromuscular signals such that the neuromuscular-signal sensors are reindexed to the default position. In particular, as shown in simulated sensor reindexing table #650, the fourteenth neuromuscular-signal sensor 115-14 is reindexed to a simulated tenth neuromuscular-signal sensor 115-10′ (e.g., which provides neuromuscular signals that are analyzed as neuromuscular signals sensed by the tenth neuromuscular-signal sensor 115-10.
Meta's patent FIG. 11 illustrates a detailed flow diagram of a method for calibrating neuromuscular signals sensed by a plurality of neuromuscular-signal sensors. For more, review patent application 20240118749 in full.20240118749 。
Two Smartwatch Patents
In addition to a specialized AR Wristband device, a couple of Meta patents have been published In April.
In this first patent application, Meta generally focuses on systems and wearable electronic devices that adaptively tune capacitive connections in mobile electronic devices. For instance, the systems herein may adaptively tune capacitive connections between the detachable capsule and the in-band antenna of a smartwatch.
A mobile electronic device may be provided that includes a receiving antenna that is part of a watch band.The watch band antenna may connect to the detachable capsule via a capacitive connection.For instance, a watch band and a detachable capsule may each have capacitive plates or leads that, when near each other, may form a capacitive connection. This connection may change over time, however, as the detachable capsule is repeatedly removed and reattached to the in-band antenna. In response to these changes in capacitance, the electronic components that rely on this connection may begin to malfunction or stop working entirely.
Like the Apple Watch, Meta's patent points to their watch also integrating a heart rate sensor and sensor for saturated oxygen level, temperature, sweat level, muscle intentions and more. The watch will also introduce a a depth camera assembly.
Meta's patent FIGS. 1A and 1B below illustrate an embodiment of a wristband system including a watch band and a watch body; FIG. 1B illustrates an example wristband system that includes a watch body #104 decoupled from a watch band #112; FIG. 2A illustrates a perspective view of an example wristband system 200 that includes a watch body #204 decoupled from a watch band #212.
Meta's patent FIG. 2B above is a side view and FIG. 2C is a perspective view of another example wristband system. The wristband systems of FIGS. 2B and 2C may include a watch body interface #230 or “cradle.” The Watch body may be detachably coupled to watch body interface. For details, review Meta patent application20240113420。
Meta's second smartwatch patent covers systems, methods, and devices for evaluating environmental and contextual cues and dynamically modifying wireless architectures to optimize performance. Past mobile devices were designed to operate in a uniform manner, regardless of who was holding the device, how they were holding the device, or which environment the device was currently in. The present disclosure aims to personalize the wireless functionality of each mobile device to the device's current user. As such, depending on how the user holds the mobile device, how the user uses their mobile device or, more specifically, how the user wears their watch, augmented reality (AR) glasses, or virtual reality (VR) headset, the mobile device itself may operate differently and may dynamically change based on external conditions.
FIGS. 5A and 5C illustrate embodiments in which a user is touching a smartwatch in different locations. As a user's fingers may interfere with an antenna's performance by absorbing some or all of its radiated signal, an indication of where the user is touching the device may be implemented when determining which changes to make to an antenna's operating parameters.
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