Apple Glasses patent suggests that any surface could become a virtual touch interface

It is increasingly clear that Apple has been working on an AR / VR headset for the consumer market. Originally expected as early as 2020, the latest rumors place its launch in 2021 or 2022.

But what’s been less clear is the exact set of features a pair of Apple AR / VR glasses will provide. Rumors about the functionality have spread with an internal debate over the direction of the unreleased headphones, ranging from an ultra-powerful portable product to a more limited iPhone accessory.

A recently-disclosed Apple patent application discovered by Appleinsider shows some interesting research Apple has been doing in the field since 2016.

In the patent, Apple addresses the question of how someone wearing a pair of “Apple Glasses” could interact with the mixed virtual / real environment they are viewing. When using an ‌iPhone‌ or iPad as an AR viewer, the user normally touches the screen to interact with the objects displayed on the screen. But when using AR headphones, the same task would be cumbersome. Previous attempts to interact directly with an AR environment required additional hardware, such as a glove or finger sensors. In the meantime, trying to visually detect the contact between the fingers and the surface is not precise enough to be useful.

Apple describes that they can perform this task more elegantly using infrared heat sensors to detect when a user touches a real-world object.

The present description relates to a method and device for detecting a contact between at least part of a first object and at least part of a second object, in which the at least part of the first object has a different temperature than the at least part from The second object. The method includes providing at least one thermal image of a part of the second object, determining at least part of the at least one thermal image a pattern that is indicative of a particular temperature value or range or a particular temperature value or range changing and using the determined pattern to detect a touch between the at least part of the first object and the at least part of the second object.

The method could allow ‌Apple Glasses‌ to visually project the controls onto real-world objects and react when touched by the user when detecting heat transfer by touching the object.

As with all patent applications, we cannot be sure that Apple will incorporate this technology into its future products. But we believe Apple plans to launch an Apple AR / VR headset. Full details can be found in our Apple Glasses overview.