Future Apple headsets may use liquid lenses to correct vision
Apple is working on technology that could allow you to ditch the expensive Zeiss inserts needed to correct vision issues on the Apple Vision Pro. Future headsets could dynamically change focus based on what you're looking at.
Users may be able to trade inserts for auto-adjusting lenses.
Dynamically focusing systems use liquid-filled lenses and electrical current to adjust focus to match a prescription. When a current is applied to the lenses, the liquid changes how light passes through them to the eye.
Traditional lenses and inserts also change how light hits the eye, but glass lenses can't be adjusted once made. Liquid lenses could change as a user's vision changes, eliminating the need to buy new inserts.
This dynamic focusing system also solves another problem with insertable corrective lenses. Inserts are not as helpful in an AR environment for users with different prescriptions for distance and reading.
Traditional progressive glasses have the distance prescription at the top of a lens and the close focus prescription at the bottom. However, an AR system is based on a display that's always at the same distance from your face.
The screen's distance does not change whether you look across a room to watch TV or down at your keyboard, as the headset's distance from your face does not change. The result can be blurry areas on a user's gaze.
Apple's new patent application, "tunable lens in an electronic device controlled using a paired electronic device," expands on multiple other patents it has applied for recently.
With this patent, future models of the Apple Vision Pro could have lenses that focus on the fly to adjust for various vision issues. For example, changing attention from a TV to a keyboard would trigger an adjustment to the focus based on what the user is looking at and the different prescription needs for that distance.
Apple describes using liquid-filled lenses to achieve these changes in focus. A liquid-filled lens changes prescription when an electrical current is applied, so matching different prescriptions is just a matter of varying the power sent to the lenses.
Practical problems to solve
The patent also explains adjusting focus without draining a battery since electricity changes the prescription. This is an important practical problem to be overcome for liquid lenses to work. After all, an adjustable lens doesn't help if the battery dies because of its use.
This technology would be critical for something like the much-rumored Apple Glasses, as the lenses in that device would likely be an integral part of the frames, and prescription adjustment would be more difficult than popping in inserts.
It's also unlikely that Apple would want to make prescription glasses to accommodate the many vision problems typical of users. With this technology, Apple could make a prescription-free set of glasses that can adjust to any user's vision needs.
Apply applies for patents in a wide array of fields. Still, the number of recent patent applications and updates to previous patents could indicate that auto-correcting vision technology could soon be available in a new headset.
This patent is attributed to James E. Pedder and several colleagues, who hold multiple patents for liquid lenses, tunable lenses, and technologies.
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Comments
EDIT:
So this must be a different patent application from the one reported here about a year ago?
https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/08/17/future-apple-vision-pro-may-use-liquid-for-lenses-instead-of-glass
Is the author aware of any of the multiple patent applications being approved for patent protection, or are all still "pending'?
Edit: wow a year and 5 days off
For Vision Pro, making it easier to wear, easier to put on and off, easier to bring with you is the number 1 priority imo.
I always position my computer monitors at approximately arms length which requires 2.00 magnification readers. For reading a book, Kindle, or iPad, I use 2.50 magnification readers. When working on things closer in, like soldering or working inside electronics on a bench, I use 3.00 magnification. Needless to say, this results in me having far too many reading glasses positioned around my desk, workspace, house, car, etc.
The liquid filled lens idea makes perfect sense because it is somewhat analogous to how the eye's natural lens is able to focus at different focal lengths by reshaping the natural lens with tiny muscles. The companies making contact lenses and implantable lenses have been trying to come up with ways to provide multifocal capability for decades using various techniques. Work in this area has been moving along but it's not nearly as common as using fixed lenses.
From an Apple Vision Pro perspective it may be worth exploring a technique used with implantable lenses to provide more than a single focal point. Some people are able to use two different fixed prescriptions, one for each eye, and let their brain work out how to provide the best acuity for a wider range of conditions. This works for some people but not for all. I suppose this technique could be tried by using different magnification AVP lens inserts, like a 2.00 in one eye and a 2.75 in the other. It might be worth a try. In fact, I'm actually dealing with this accidentally because one of my eyes changed enough after lens implantation to have a noticeably different (closer) focal point than the other. This has allowed me to see closer things better with one eye and further away, but still near vision, with the other eye. For the most part I don't have any issues at all with the situation and never notice anything unusual, but at times flat things, like a tar strip or leaves on a road, that look like a 3D standing object like a board or a squirrel in the middle of the road.
One of the problems I have with 3-D movies right now is the focus is defined for you, but your brain can feel”off” because it’s mimicking the depth of reality, but you can control your focus point. In a 2-D movie it doesn’t matter because I think our brain is aware that it’s an artifice of a flat plane - but in a 3-D movie it can be a little disconcerting (to some anyway)
With this type of technology, it might be possible that you could focus on any part of a 3-D movie that you would like and it would natural, organic - and in focus.