Samsung Patents Show Smartwatch With Built-In Camera, Tablet With Rollable Display

It’s been discovered recently that Samsung has filed patents for a tablet with a rollable display and a smartwatch that comes with a built-in camera. The two patents are speculated to be part of Samsung’s plans for its future mobile devices.

Samsung filed for the patents back in November 2016, but they were only published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office earlier this month. They were first discovered by the Russian website 3DNews.ru.

The first patent is for a wearable device, a smartwatch, that comes with a circular display. The patent also describes that that right in the middle of the circular display is a camera lens. If that isn’t weird enough, the camera that’s right in the middle of the display also comes with optical zoom capabilities which makes the lens protrude from the device when zooming in, according to Phone Arena.

The addition of a camera on a smartwatch seems really farfetched, and it almost feels like a concept that’s reserved for spy/sci-fi films. However, it would be really interesting to see a wearable device that’s capable of taking photos and videos, and possibly even work for live streaming or video calls.

With the camera smack dab in the middle of the smartwatch’s display, it is still able to leave some room to show some app icons. Since Samsung has been experimenting with flexible displays for a long time, this smartwatch patent shows that the watch band is also a functioning touchscreen.

The watch band itself is a secondary flexible display that’s able to show additional app icons. This is probably Samsung’s solution for the lack of screen real estate on the circular display.

The illustration for the watch band is kind of reminiscent of the edge panels on the Galaxy S smartphones. The Galaxy S8’s edge display functions as an additional tray for app shortcuts and other other functions. The way the watch band will work on this wearable seems pretty similar.

It’s currently being speculated that Samsung might apply these new technologies for its next smartwatch, the Gear S4. However, it’s important to remember that big companies like Samsung always file various patents that never actually end up as real products.

Even if this doesn’t end up becoming a real product, it does give us an idea of what Samsung wants to do for its future smartwatches. The company seems to be making a lot of progress with its flexible display technology, and it isn’t really hard to imagine a watch band that also functions as a secondary display.

The second patent is for a tablet with a rollable display. The device comes with a roll on one side where the display can wrap and unwrap from. The right-hand side of the device is what users will have to pull on in order to unroll the whole display.

The device itself should be able to automatically detect which area of the display is supposed to be active. This will depend on the roll’s rotation.

A tablet with a rollable display isn’t such an outlandish or impossible concept. After all, Samsung’s already got years of experience dealing with flexible, bendable and rollable displays.