On September 7, Apple will introduce their new iPhone 14 lineup along with Apple Watch 8 with a new temperature sensor and possibly next-gen AirPods.  Today the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that relates to adding a temperature sensing in other health care devices. The patent figures clearly point to temperature sensing being added to a future generation of AirPods and possible to a future fabric-based Apple Watch band.

Today, the U.S. Patent Office published a patent application from Apple titled "Packaging technologies for temperature sensing in health care products," which points to AirPods and another possible wearable device described as one in which a temperature sensor package is secured within a fabric. For example, the fabric can be integrated into a piece of clothing such as shirt, headband, glove, a strap, etc. The latter could easily translate to a sensor package secured within a fabric-based Apple Watch Band.

Apple's patent FIGS. 24-26 below illustrate AirPods and a fabric-based Apple Watch band that incorporates a temperature sensor package; FIG. 4 s a flow diagram of a method of fabricating the skin temperature sensor package.

Apple states that wearable health devices are increasingly integrating a broad variety of sensors to better monitor heath status of users. With the development of packaging technologies such as system in package, embedded die, semiconductor very-large-scale integration (VLSI) technologies and so on it has become possible to develop miniaturized systems and devices. Skin temperature is one of the vital signs for patient's health.

Today's patent application from Apple adds 20 new patent claims to better protect their invention from competitors and patent trolls. Below are just six of the new claims: 

• A temperature sensor package comprising: a routing layer including a top side and a bottom side; a cavity formed in the bottom side of the routing layer; a transducer mounted within the cavity; a chip mounted on the top side of the routing layer and in electrical connection with the transducer.

• The temperature sensor package of claim 1, further comprising an insulating layer around the transducer within the cavity.

• The temperature sensor package of claim 2, further comprising an optical window over a surface of the transducer.

• The temperature sensor package of claim 3, further comprising a dielectric layer surrounding the optical window.

• The temperature sensor package of claim 4, wherein the optical window comprises multiple layers.

• The temperature sensor package of claim 4, wherein the optical window comprises a wavelength range filter layer.

For more details and the remaining 14 new patent claims, review Apple's patent application number 20220270955.

Will Apple introduce temperature sensors to both the Apple Watch and AirPods on September 7th or only the former?