The Apple Vision Pro Headset uses in-air gestures in an amazingly easy-to-use manner and it appears that Samsung thinks that this methodology could also be used to control the user interface of future Samsung TVs.

Instead of using a remote control for a TV or a mouse and keyboard for a large display, NUIs (Natural User Interfaces) have been developed to detect natural human body movements and use specific gestures to control the display device.

The patent covers a method of controlling a display device that includes displaying an indicator, recognizing a user's body from an image received in real time.

The display device #100 could be a TV, a 3D display and/or a touch display, a rollable display or projector display that recognizes a user gesture and can move the indicator #10 (FIG. 6 below) according to the recognized user gesture. The user shown in FIG. 6 is sitting at home on a couch controlling a TV. The indicator focuses (or highlights) a pointer, a cursor (e.g., a character cursor, a mouse cursor, etc.), any one of the characters on the screen, an item, an object, etc. It can be implemented as a highlighter, etc.

Here, the user gesture may include movement (eg, movement) of a specific area (eg, wrist, palm, etc.) in the user's body. It is not limited to this, and user gestures include a tap action on a specific area, a double tap action, a swipe action, a flick action, and a pinch in/out action. Of course, it may include rotation operations, etc.

For example, a tap action may include a gesture action of briefly and lightly tapping with one finger, and a double tap action may include a gesture action of performing a tap action twice in quick succession.

The swipe action may include a gesture of moving a certain distance while maintaining the tab, for example, moving a certain distance to the left or right.

The flick action may include a gesture of quickly scrolling horizontally or vertically while holding the tab.

The pinch in/out motion is a gesture for zooming in/out, respectively. When the distance between two fingers increases, the pinch out motion is a gesture for zooming in, and when the distance between two fingers decreases, the pinch in motion is a gesture for zooming in. It could be a gesture for The rotate operation includes a gesture that switches from vertical to horizontal or horizontal to vertical, and may be a gesture that rotates the screen (or an object within the screen). The various gestures are shown in patent figures 7 & 8 below.

The sensor #120 illustrated in the figures above represents a camera, may also be implemented as a time-of-flight (ToF) sensor, Lidar sensor, radar sensor, ultrasonic sensor, infrared sensor, etc. For example, an infrared sensor can recognize a user by detecting infrared light information.

Samsung's patent application was made public in Geneva via WIPO under #WO/2024/020757 on February 08, 2024.

Samsung's patent comes five months after Apple's patent application using a possible future Apple Watch to make gestures to control contrent on a Home TV as presented in patent FIG. 7A below. Review Patently Apple's paternt report on this here.