Yesterday Patently Apple posted a report titled "Zuckerberg's Meta is Filing Smartglasses related Patents at a Frenzied Pace. This report covers the first two filed this week with more tomorrow." Today our follow-up report covers another four Meta patent applications relating to future smartglasses.

Frame Tracking System for Smartglasses

Meta's Patent Abstract: An apparatus, system, and method for an eye tracking system for a head-mounted device include a light source, an image sensor, and a frame tracking system. The light source and image sensor may be configured to determine absolute and relative eye orientations. The frame tracking system may be configured to determine the displacement of a head-mounted device frame relative to the face of the user. The frame tracking system may provide displacement data for the displacement of the head-mounted device frame to the eye tracking system to enable the eye tracking system to compensate for frame slippage, frame jostling, or other frame displacement (relative to the face of the user). The frame tracking system may include one or more position sensors disposed on the head-mounted device frame and logic configured to determine displacement data using information from the one or more position sensors.

Meta's patent FIGS. 1A, 1B, and 1C below illustrate example diagrams of a head-mounted device configured to use frame tracking to improve eye tracking accuracy; FIG. 2 illustrates an example flow diagram of a tracking system environment.

For full details, review Meta's patent application 20240184357.

Hot Mirror Optical Cavity and Infield Illumination

Meta's Patent Abstract: An illumination optical component for a head mounted device includes an input aperture, an optical substrate, a hot mirror layer, and exit feature voids. The input aperture is configured to accept near-infrared light from a light source. The optical substrate has a refractive index. The hot mirror layer is disposed on the optical substrate. The hot mirror layer is configured to confine the near-infrared light to be recycled within the optical substrate and configured to pass visible light. The exit feature voids are patterned into an eye-side of the hot mirror layer. The exit feature voids are configured to illuminate an eyebox region with near-infrared illumination light. Meta's Patent FIG. 1 above illustrates a head mounted device that may include an illumination optical component. Review patent application 20240219721 for full details.

Other Smartglasses Patents from Meta

WO2024151397 Flexible Hinge Thermal Architecture

US20240233233: Techniques for Animating an Avatar based on Sensor Data from an Artificial Reality headset.