Today the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially published a series of three newly granted patents relating to various aspects of their Apple Vision Pro headset including its facial interface, optics and more.  

Apple Vision Pro's Facial Interface

Apple's first Vision Pro granted patent relates to a display system and, in particular, head-mounted display units with facial interfaces. In one implementation, head-mounted display includes a display unit and a facial interface. The display unit includes a display for displaying graphical content to a user. The facial interface is coupled to the display unit and configured to engage a face of the user to support the display unit thereon. The facial interface includes an upper portion that engages a forehead of the user and side portions that engage temple regions of the user. The facial interface converts forward force applied to the upper portion by the forehead into inward force applied by side portions to the temple regions.

The facial interface may include a force distributor having an upper segment that forms the upper portion and two side segments that form the side portions, and forward movement of the upper segment causes inward movement of the side segments. The display unit and the facial interface may be cooperatively configured to block environmental light from eyes of the user. The facial interface may include a lateral stabilizer that selectively transfers force between one of the side portions and the display unit.

Apple's patent FIG. 1A below is a side view of a head-mounted display worn on a head of a user; FIG. 1B is a partial top view of the head-mounted display of FIG. 1A. FIG. 4A is a top view of the head-mounted display of FIG. 1A illustrating an embodiment of a facial interface thereof in first state (solid lines) and a second state (dash-dash lines); FIG. 4B is a top view of the head-mounted display of FIG. 4A with the head of the user engaging the facial interface in the second state.

Further, patent FIGS. 4A-4B cover facial interface #430 which is configured to convert forward force F.sub.forward applied thereto by the head (H) into inward force F.sub.inward applied therefrom to other portions of the head H, as well as convert forward movement of the facial interface #430 into inward movement for engagement with the head H. In this manner, the facial interface is compliant to conform to the shape of the face of the user, changing from an unworn state (solid lines in FIG. 4A) to a worn state (dashed lines in FIG. 4A; solid lines in FIG. 4B).

For finer details, review granted patent 11720145.

Apple's Second Vision Pro Granted Patent 11719937: is titled "Head-mounted Electronic Device With Self-mixing Sensors."

Overview of the Patent: A head-mounted device may have a head-mounted housing and optical components supported by the head-mounted housing. The optical components may include cameras, movable optical modules, and other components. Each optical module may include a display that displays an image and a lens that provides the image to a corresponding eye box. Optical self-mixing sensors may be included in the optical modules and other portions of the head-mounted device to measure changes in optical component position. In response to detecting a change in optical component position, actuators in the device may be adjusted to move the optical components or other action may be taken to compensate for the change.

Apple's Third Vision Pro Granted Patent 11719936 is titled "Optical System For Head-mounted Display."

Overview of the Patent: A head-mounted display may include a display system and an optical system that are supported by a housing. The optical system may be a catadioptric optical system having one or more lens elements. In one example, the optical system includes a single lens element and a retarder that is coated on a curved surface of the lens element. The retarder may be coated on an aspheric concave surface of the lens element. In another example the retarder may be coated on an aspheric convex surface of the lens element. One or more components of the optical system may be formed using a direct printing technique. This may allow for one or more adhesive layers and one or more hard coatings to be omitted from the optical system. A lens element may be directly printed on the display system to improve alignment between the optical system and the display system.