Within the last year Apple patent filings have covered a selfie camera for their Apple Watch (graphic below) along with a secondary display built into the band. Is it any surprise then that a new Samsung patent for similar features has just surfaced? No – as Apple and Samsung are always on a war footing trying to outdo the other. On one hand I'd like to laugh at the Samsung idea of a zoom camera lens designed to protrude through the display while on the other hand I'd be amazed if they could actually pull it off. The lens cover would appear to be a part of the display until a photo is taken using the zoom lens which would then push the lens outward. I still can't wrap my head around the idea being that a digital zoom would suffice. But only time will tell which route Samsung takes.
In a nutshell, Samsung describes their patent this way: "A wearable device and a control method are provided. The wearable device includes a display configured to display time information, a camera configured to photograph an image, a sensor configured to sense a user's motion, and a processor configured to analyze the user's motion based on a sensing value sensed by the sensor and to perform an image photographing if the user's motion satisfies an image photographing condition, thereby enabling the user to perform image photographing easily using the wearable device."
Of course there's a little more to the patent than their patent abstract. For instance, the camera will offer zoom capabilities as noted in patent FIG. 11 below.
Samsung further notes that "in the case where the type of lens #430 is formed in the central region #440 of the display #110 is a barrel lens, the lens may protrude externally and perform a zoom-in/zoom-out operation. That is, the lens may protrude externally or be inserted into the body #410 based on a manipulating direction of the bezel manipulator 161 and the jog dial #163.
Specifically, if at least one manipulating direction of the bezel manipulator and the jog dial is a first direction, the lens performs a zoom-in operation of protruding externally. Meanwhile, if the at least one manipulating direction of the bezel manipulator and the jog dial is in a second direction that is opposite to the first direction, the lens that had been protruding externally performs a zoom-out operation of being inserted into the body.
Below in patent FIGS. 8A and 8B, we're able to see that when the user's arm is at one height, the phot taken will be in landscape mode. Once the arm is raised to about shoulder height, the photo taken will be in portrait mode.
Lastly, Samsung further describes that there is an automatic mode for taking photos based on acceleration and angular velocity.
Technically speaking Samsung notes that "the sensor may include a first sensor configured to sense an acceleration caused by the first user's motion, and a second sensor configured to sense an angular velocity caused by the first user's motion, wherein the image photographing condition includes an acceleration value sensed by the first sensor being equal to or greater than a predetermined critical velocity and an angular variation detected from the angular velocity sensed by the second sensor being equal to or greater than a predetermined critical value."
New Band with Flexible Sub-Display
Samsung notes in patent FIG. 6 that the watch band #420 may include a sub-display #150. The sub-display may display icons #610-1 to #610-4 each corresponding to each of the UIs on the display screen according to a control command of the processor.
Samsung filed their US patent application back in November 2016. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
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