Since its launch in 2016, the Apple Watch has always come with a button and a digital crown on its right edge. A recent patent filed by Apple, however, has just shown that the Californian firm is considering an alternative concerning the digital crown. The latter shows that it would be replaced by an optical sensor, which can also be used to recognize the gestures of people wearing the connected watch.
Farewell to the digital crown of the Apple Watch?
The design of the Apple Watch has never really changed. Still square with a side button and a digital crown, but with increasingly larger screens, Apple’s connected watches might however see their curvatures change. Indeed, the American company would consider removing the crown from its watch, in particular allowing to navigate in the interface and to perform an ECG for certain models.
In a new publication, the site Patently Apple has just unveiled an Apple patent recently published by the USPTO, the US Patent and Trademark Office. This request was formulated by Apple two and a half years ago, more precisely in July in 2021. Via this new patent, Apple thus presents an optical sensor in place of the famous digital crown. We also learn that the objective of this device is to understand the user’s gestures. It would also make it possible to measure several biometric data: respiratory and heart rate, blood oxygenation level, arterial pressure or even blood volume.
In addition to that, this sensor might logically recognize gestures similar to the digital crown: a sliding up or down would thus make it possible to perform the rolling movement for navigator and a tap on it would replace the pressure on the crown allowing to exit an application or access installed applications. This novelty would thus allow Apple to save space on the Apple Watch.
This novelty would also be an opportunity to integrate other components inside its connected watches or to limit material breakage. We can also think that the abandonment of the digital crown would make it possible to take advantage of a larger battery. Now we have to wait to see if this abandonment of the digital crown will materialize with the marketing or not of a future Apple Watch in the years to come.
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