Apple has been granted a new patent that relates to a fabric Apple Watch band with an electrochromic feature. This allows users to adjust the color scheme and design in three distinct band zones to give the watch band a customizable look unique to the user. Users can set three different colors on the band, and the color selections can be made and adjusted without removing and exchanging the watch band.
Apple Patent Grants New Color-Adjustable Fabric Watch Band for Apple Watch
Apple notes that users may desire the ability to customize their watch bands to express variety and style, and this new technology offers a solution to this problem. Traditional watches require users to have a separate watch band for each color or color combination that they desire, and the user is required to remove and exchange the watch bands whenever a different color or color combination is desired.
This new technology offers adjustable color control, providing a variety of colors and color combinations to be displayed by a single band. The user or a control system can control, select, and/or adjust one or more colors of the watch band for visual display. Accordingly, a variety of colors can be displayed at different times without requiring different watch bands for each color or color combination.
The patent notes that watch bands having adjustable colors can also be used to communicate information to a user. For example, the color-adjustable elements of the watch band can be arranged and independently controlled in a manner that allows the system to display particular icons, shapes, and/or text by illuminating certain elements in a particular way. This technology can be used as a visual output of information from the watch to the user.
The watch band is made of a fabric that includes a number of filaments to form a fabric. Some or all of the filaments can include electrochromic features. Electro-chromism is a reversible color change in a material caused by an applied electric field or current. Ion insertion materials, which are mixed conductors (i.e. both electronic and ionic), into which ions can be rapidly and reversibly inserted, can be used as electrochromic materials.
The watch band conductor can optionally include a shape memory alloy that changes shape when a voltage is applied to the conductor. This applied voltage can be the same voltage that is applied to achieve a color change in the electrochromic layer. This shape change can provide haptic feedback to the user along with the visual indication provided by the color change. This technology offers a customizable and innovative solution to traditional watch bands.
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