Apple has received the message loud and clear that Apple Vision was too expensive, too heavy with not enough power and more. One key area that Apple has gone back to the drawing board on is its securement system for Vision Pro and for future smartglasses as presented in these recently revealed patents: 01, 02, 03 and 04. It's always interesting to see the various Apple engineering teams competing for the design that will ultimately be chosen. And sometime the end result is a combination of features for various teams.

This week yet another patent came to light presenting a series of new securement concepts titled "Adjustable Head Securement For Head-mountable Device." It bypassed the public patent application stage and went from a non-public provisional patent directly to a granted patent.

Apple notes that HMDs (Head-mountable devices), such as head-mountable displays, headsets, visors, smartglasses, head-up display, etc., can perform a range of functions that are managed by the components (e.g., sensors, circuitry, and other hardware) included with the wearable device.

An HMD can be secured to a head of a user while being worn and operated by the user. It can be desirable to maximize the fit and comfort on the user, so that usage of the head-mountable device for extended durations is not difficult for the user.

Some head-mountable devices are designed to secure to the head of the user by wrapping tightly around the sides and/or back of the user's head, for example, with arms or a band. This arrangement often involves providing a tightness that can secure the head-mountable device to a variety of head shapes and sizes. However, this can be somewhat uncomfortable for at least some users.

To maximize comfort experienced by the user, a head-mountable device can provide one or more different types of adjustment capabilities. Such adjustments can help accommodate portions of the user's head, including the user's ears.

While different users have ears in different locations and of different sizes, it can be beneficial to provide adjustment capabilities to avoid placing excessive forces on the ears of the user while maintaining a secure fit. Such adjustment capabilities can help distribute forces and accommodate variations in head features (e.g., ear size, shape, and location relative to other features of the head) across different users.

It can be desirable to provide a head securement element that allows a user to adjust how the head securement element fits near the ears of the user.

Examples of adjustment mechanisms described in the patent allow a user to control the size, shape, flexibility, and/or position of certain regions of the head securement element with respect to the ears of the user.

Accordingly, the user can select a configuration that distributes forces evenly, maximizes comfort, and allows the user to enjoy the head-mountable device for longer durations of time.

To review the full details of this invention, check out granted patent 12248152.   

Apple Inventors

• Wang; Paul X: Senior Manager, Product Design
• Leinweber; Scott M.: Product Design Manager
• Camp; John S.: Distinguished Engineer

For techies wanting to review more patents relating to Vision Pro or future versions thereof, Apple was also granted patent 12250474  last Tuesday titled: "Eye Tracking Using Efficient Image Capture And Vergence And Inter-pupillary Distance History."