A newly granted Apple patent (US 11880111 B1) reveals that follow-ups to the Imaginative and prescient Professional — whether or not a Imaginative and prescient Professional 2 or an AR/VR machine in conventional eyeglasses type — might not require prescription lenses.
Description of the patent
The patent relates typically to optical programs, and, extra notably, to units with tunable lenses. Eyewear might embody optical programs akin to lenses. For instance, eyewear akin to a pair of glasses might embody lenses that permit customers to view the encompassing setting.
Apple says it may be difficult to design units akin to these. The tech big says if care isn’t taken, the optical programs in these units might not be capable of accommodate completely different eye prescriptions and should not carry out satisfactorily.
Apple’s concept is for eyeglasses which may be worn by a consumer and should embody a number of adjustable lenses every aligned with a respective certainly one of a consumer’s eyes. For instance, a primary adjustable lens might align with the consumer’s left eye and a second adjustable lens might align with the consumer’s proper eye.
Every of the primary and second adjustable lenses might embody a number of liquid crystal cells or different voltage-modulated optical materials. Every liquid crystal cell might embody a layer of liquid crystal materials interposed between clear substrates.
Management circuitry might apply management indicators to an array of electrodes within the liquid crystal cell to regulate a section profile of the liquid crystal materials. In different phrases, the “Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional 2.0” or “Apple Glasses” would sport lenses that match a unique prescription for every eye, and likewise permit switching the identical machine between a number of customers with completely different prescriptions.
Abstract of the patent
Right here’s Apple’s (quite technical) summary of the patent: “A pair of eyeglasses might embody a number of adjustable lenses which can be every configured to align with a respective certainly one of a consumer’s eyes. The adjustable lenses might every embody electrically modulated optical materials akin to a number of liquid crystal cells, every having a section profile that’s adjusted utilizing patterned electrodes.
“Analog voltages could also be offered to the patterned electrodes by means of variable-resistance conductive paths which can be every coupled to a subset of the patterned electrodes. Digital voltage choice circuitry could also be used to pick which analog voltage to use to every of the variable-resistance conductive paths from a predetermined set of analog voltages which can be generated off of the lens. The digital voltage choice circuitry might embody an array of multiplexers, every of which selects a desired voltage primarily based on management indicators acquired from digital management circuitry such a shift register and/or a decoder.”
