Back in January, Patently Apple posted a report titled "While Apple Vision Pro will be Marketed as a Consumer device, Apple has a team working on solutions for Surgeons, Education and more. Earlier today, Patently Apple posted a patent report titled " In the future, Apple Vision Pro could include a wide-array of embedded sensors in its Head Band to monitor Brain Activity & more."

A second medical/health related patent/invention relating to  Vision Pro was published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office relating to a facial interface of a head-mountable device. More particularly, the present embodiments relate to a facial interface of a head-mountable device including a pressure sensor assembly for detecting biometric information from a user. Clearly Apple has teams focused on the Health side of Vision Pro like they do with Apple Watch.

Facial Interface having Integrated Health Sensors

Apple's patent application/invention relates to a facial interface of a head-mountable device that includes a pressure sensor assembly used for acquiring biometric information. Apple's invention could apply to AR/VR head sets and also to smart glasses.

In some examples, a processor causes a component of the HMD to perform an action in response to the biometric information collected by the sensor(s). For example, an action can include displaying a notification for the user and/or activating or deactivating one or more components.

In some examples, a sensor can collect biometric information from the nose and/or forehead of the user wearing the device, including when they are performing an activity, like exercising.

The biometric information can be related to pulse, respiration, facial expression, heart rate, blood pressure, changes in the cartilage, chewing, or any other pertinent data.

Head-mountable devices equipped with sensors are utilized for various purposes that detect user feedback, such as positioning or movement feedback, providing limited information in response to a user. For example, a user may have an increase in respiration or heart rate while performing a movement or action.

Conventional head-mountable devices are not appropriately equipped to capture all the desired biometric information. 

In contrast, the head-mountable devices of the present invention includes a facial interface that can be incorporated or integrated with sensor(s), such as a pressure sensor assembly, configured to collect user data, such as biometric information, including pulse, respiration, facial expressions, heart rate, blood pressure, etc. By capturing the user data, the pressure sensor assembly of the facial interface can provide increased and improved feedback to the user.

A head-mountable device with sensors monitoring user biometrics or health feedback creates a highly customized user experience, unlike the sensors of a conventional head-mountable device, which are unable to consider the user experience to such a degree.

The head-mountable device can include sensors that are integrated on/in the facial interface in a variety of different ways. For example, the head-mountable device of the present invention can implement a first facial interface with a first sensor assembly being interchangeable, along with a second facial interface with a second sensor assembly. In some examples, the removably attached sensor assembly can correspond to a different user activity, such as exercise, health, clinical settings, learnings activities, etc.

The sensors can allow for observations of the cardiovascular system and respiration, to observe relaxation and stress indicators, mental health, medical treatments, etc. Using the disclosed sensors integrated on the facial interface, physicians and care takers could have live feedback of biometrics.

Use cases can include fitness settings, user content, workplace, telepresence, clinical, education, training, pain, therapy, etc.

According to some aspects, a facial interface for a wearable device can include a housing defining an internal volume, a pressure sensor positioned in the internal volume, and a membrane moves in response to facial movements.

In some examples, the membrane is a deformable elastomer. A pressure in the internal volume can change based on movement of the membrane, the change in pressure being detectable by the pressure sensor. A stiffness of the membrane can be adjustable. The pressure sensor can have a sensitivity of about 2.5 millibar.

For full details, review Apple's patent application 20240090777.

Some of the Inventors

• Nadav Osiroff: Sensing Hardware Engineer (Israel location)
• Oriel Bergig: Senior Engineering Manager | Sensing, Deep Learning (Israel)
• Boris Gendelsman: Sr. Opto Mechanical Engineer Camera Hardware
• Javier Mendez: Product Design Engineer (Israel)
•  Raviv Erlich: Systems Engineer (Israel)