Patent Application
20090040879
This invention relates generally to wearable electronic devices, such as timepieces, and in particular, to an electronic device, such as for example and not limitation, a watch, that has multiple display functionality. More specifically, the electronic device of the present invention provides unique constructions and methodologies for displaying information with the use of hands, such as that found in analog watches (i.e. in an “analog manner”).
Originally, watches were typically viewed merely as a device for telling time or providing other time related information. Over the years, watches have become the means by which information, other than time information, could be presented to the wearer.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,113,450 (“Plancon et al”) describes a watch with a multifunctional analog display. In one embodiment, a dial for an analog watch is provided with windows and one or more LCD panels are provided behind the dial and aligned with the respective windows. A controller is operable in a first mode and at least a second mode and the LCD display is viewable through the window in the dial, wherein the display displays informational indicia corresponding to the mode in which the electronic device is operating. U.S. Pat. No. 4,488,818 also describes the use of a dial formed by a liquid crystal display cell.
However, the present inventors believe further advances in the art are desirable. For example, a timepiece in which a cholesteric liquid crystal display (“ChLCD”) can be used provides advantages believed to be absent in the state of the art. For example, utilizing ChLCD technology provide for reduced power usage and an increase in aesthetic and multifunctional related opportunities.
It is thus believed that further advances are achievable. And, it is believed that the functionality and methodologies to provide the foregoing advantages and achieve the aforementioned objectives, as well as those set forth below, are provided by the present invention.
It is thus an objective of the present invention to overcome the perceived deficiencies in the prior art.
For example, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a bi-stable display with improved reflective characteristics.
As but another example, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a display with good contrast and low power consumption.
It is yet another objective and advantage of the present invention to provide an electronic device that clearly displays, and makes easily comprehensible, information relating to data stored in the controller of the device, whether the information be time-based or nontime-based information, and whether or not the information is received from an external source, such as via a telephone link, computer link, sensors, wired or wirelessly, or the like.
It is another objective and advantage of the present invention to provide an electronic device that clearly displays, and makes easily comprehensible, information relating to external parameters, as well as time-based or nontime-based information that may be programmed into or otherwise stored in the electronic device.
It is a yet another object and advantage of the present invention to provide all of the foregoing in an electronic device, such as a wearable electronic device, such as a timepiece and a wristwatch in particular, that displays the information using hands that are coupled to actuation mechanisms, such as stepper motors.
Further objects and advantages of this invention will become more apparent from a consideration of the drawings and ensuing description.
The invention accordingly comprises the features of construction, combination of elements and arrangement of parts that will be exemplified in the disclosure hereinafter set forth, and the scope of the invention will be indicated in the claims.
To overcome the perceived deficiencies in the prior art and to achieve the objects and advantages set forth above and below, the present invention is, generally speaking, directed to wearable electronic devices, such as electronic timepieces.
In a preferred embodiment, the wearable multimode electronic device is of the type wherein information is conveyed in an analog manner at least in part by the use of at least one display hand, wherein the wearable electronic device includes a dial assembly having a dial side and an opposite side, wherein the display hand is positioned on the dial side of the dial assembly, and wherein the wearable multimode electronic device comprises an actuation mechanism, operatively coupled to the at least one display hand, for rotating the at least one display hand in at least one of a clockwise and counterclockwise direction in predefined increments; a controller, operable in a first mode and at least a second mode and operatively coupled to the actuation mechanism, for causing the actuation mechanism to rotate the at least one display hand in at least one of the clockwise and counterclockwise direction in the predefined increments; wherein the dial assembly is operatively coupled to the controller, and is a liquid crystal display assembly; wherein the dial assembly displays informational indicia corresponding to the mode in which the electronic device is operating, and wherein the informational indicia is changeable based on the mode in which the wearable electronic device is operating; and wherein the positioning of the display hand as it rotates in the one of the clockwise and counterclockwise directions in the predefined increments conveys the information by referring to particular informational indicia, and wherein the controller operatively controls the positioning of the hand so that the hand can convey the information in the analog manner for each of the at least two modes.
In a specific embodiment, the liquid crystal display is a cholesteric liquid crystal display.
The above set forth and other features of the invention are made more apparent in the ensuing Description of the Preferred Embodiments when read in conjunction with the attached Drawings, wherein:
Identical reference numerals in the figures are intended to indicate like parts, although not every feature in every figure may be called out with a reference numeral.
Reference is first made generally to
Generally speaking, electronic device 10 comprises a module, generally indicated at 15, which itself includes a housing 17, in which are disposed many components, the material ones of which pertain to the present invention being hereinafter disclosed. However, it should be understood that the present disclosure will omit, for purposes of brevity, certain basic and very well known concepts regarding the construction of an analog or chronograph watch. For example, the basic construction and arrangements of gears and/or gear trains to rotate a plurality of “standard” hands all supported on a center stem 19, such as an hour hand 18, a minute hand 20 and a “seconds” hand 21, will be omitted as being well within the purview of one skilled in the art. However, for purposes of supporting the claims and providing an enabling disclosure, certain parts of such well-known mechanisms will be referenced throughout.
As can also be seen in
It is also believed that it is well understood by those skilled in the art how to provide one or more stems through a liquid crystal display. The subject matter of U.S. Pat. No. 4,488,818 and application Ser. No. 11/544,084 are incorporated herein by reference for just such exemplary teachings.
For reference, it can be seen that the hour hand and minute hand conveys time of day information and are rotatable about a center axis, and display hands 24 and 26 are rotatable about an axis other than the center axis.
A brief disclosure of a preferred hand movement system, generally indicated at 30, in connection with the present invention will now be disclosed. However, it should be understood that further details can be found in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 7,113,450, the subject matter of which is incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
Reference will now also be made to
As positioned in module 15, motor M1 is provided to rotate hour hand 18, minute hand 20 and “seconds” hand 21 all in a known manner. Specifically, hour hand 18, minute hand 20 and “seconds” hand 21 are coupled to a gear train, generally indicated at 31, for conveying the rotational activity generated by the rotor of motor M1. In a similar manner, hand 22 is rotated by stepper motor M2, and a gear train generally indicated at 32 is provided to convey the rotational activity generated by the rotor of motor M2 to hand 22. Likewise, hands 24, 26 are each respectively rotated by stepper motors M3 and M4, and a gear train generally indicated at 33 is provided to convey the rotational activity generated by the rotor of motor M3 to hand 24, while a gear train generally indicated at 34 is provided to convey the rotational activity generated by the rotor of motor M4 to hand 26. The construction of the respective gear trains 31-34 are well within the purview of one ordinarily skilled in the art.
Reference is now made to
As illustrated in
By way of background, switches S1-S5 are intended to generically indicate both side/top mounted pushers, as well as side mounted rotatable crowns, and thus respond to the actuation (i.e. pulling and/or pushing) action thereof. In the case of crowns, the pulling and or pushing actuations may be provided for setting hands 18, 20 and 21, setting alarm(s) and or actuating backlighting capabilities. In the case of side mounted pushers, start/stop functions, mode selections and calibration of hands 22, 24 and 26 can be effectuated. Of course combinations of the foregoing are within the purview of one skilled in the art. Details of such side pushers or crown actuations/constructions are not material to the present invention, and therefore disclosure thereof is omitted.
Reference is now generally made to
A ROM memory block 102 in cooperation with an address encoder 103 provide access to electronic device control software and fixed data. The methodology for the programming for directing CPU 101 on the steps and logic necessary to keep track of and determine subsequent motor positions, as discussed further below, is also coded into ROM 102. Reference may also be made to application Ser. No. 10/090,588, the subject matter of which is incorporated by reference as if set forth herein, for a disclosure of a preferred construction for driving and controlling a plurality of stepper motors.
A RAM memory block 104, in cooperation with an address decoder 105, provides storage for intermediate calculation values and also is used to hold current position of the various electronic device hands, such as hands 18, 20, 21, 22, 24 and 26, and to store changeable information such as pill schedules, tide tables, etc., that may be downloaded into controller 100 through a port, generically indicated by 112, which may be an IR port, a keyboard input, a port for optical transmission, LEDs, RF, or through a computer interface, such as that described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,488,571, coowned by the present assigned and incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein.
Controller 100 includes oscillator circuit 106 which oscillates at a frequency determined by resonator 91, and in the preferred embodiment, this frequency of oscillation is 32768 Hz. A frequency divider circuit 107 divides the output of oscillator circuit 106 to generate appropriate timing signals for timekeeping, motor control and data acquisition functions.
A motor hand control circuit 109 receives a commanded “next number of pulses” from CPU core 101 and generates the pulsed and phased signals necessary to move a desired motor (M1-M4) a desired amount and in a desired direction. Pulse outputs of the motor hand control circuit 109 are buffered by motor drivers MD1-MD4 and applied to motors M1-M4.
An input/output control circuit 110 controls the crown actuations and pushbutton switches of
An interrupt control circuit 111 is connected to frequency divider circuit 107, motor hand control circuit 109 and input/output control circuit 110, and outputs timer interrupts, motor control interrupts, and key interrupts to CPU 101.
Again, reference to the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 7,113,450 may be had for disclosure of, among other things, a block diagram circuit elements to interface electronic device 10 to “the outside world,” such as that for controller 100 to directly or indirectly control the movement of the respective hands to display chronological data, analog representations of data stored in ROM and/or RAM, and analog representations of parameters measured through sensors. Such external parameters include, but are not limited to ambient temperature, altitude, body temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, heart rate, and compass headings. Preferred embodiments of the invention may thus include one or more embedded, tethered or remotely coupled sensor circuits, all as disclosed in the aforementioned '450 Patent.
All of the foregoing makes clear that in an embodiment that may not utilize sensors to measure external parameters, controller 100 will have in its memory (or will be able to receive from an external source for storage in such memory) all the necessary data representative of the stored information such as tide or “pill-taking” information, by way of example, and in an electronic device that comprises one or more sensors, controller 100 will receive the necessary data representative of the measured parameter(s) via one or more sensor circuits.
As noted, analog hands 18, 20 and 21 are preferably used to indicate time and hands 22, 24 and 26 are preferably used to display either values stored in ROM 102, values stored in RAM 104 or current data collected by any sensors. Since the display of time information using stepper motors is known to one skilled in the art, the following discussion will address display of stored information and “live” information collected from such sensors.
Advantageously, and as is also known to those skilled in the art, a stepper motor will remain in its last position unless pulsed to move. Therefore to smoothly display continuously varying information with an analog hand driven by a stepper motor, the preferred embodiment delivers to the stepper motor the necessary number of pulses to move the rotor of the stepper motor between a desired position at t=0, for example, and a position desired after some small time interval later.
As indicated above, the preferred embodiment will utilize sensors with A/D conversion to facilitate computation and interface to the memory mapped I/O. Therefore to determine the number of pulses and direction to move a rotor of a stepper motor to its next position it is necessary to know where the rotor is in terms of a number of pulses, subtract that from the new sensor value converted to pulses, and based on the magnitude and sign of the difference, pulse the stepper motor the number of pulses needed to move the rotor the desired amount and in the desired direction.
In an alternate embodiment the calculations above can be performed using converted sensor values in digital format and then by applying the appropriate scale factors, develop the number of pulse determined above.
Selection and implementation of smaller or larger time intervals between sampling is well within the knowledge of one skilled in the art.
The '450 Patent provides a very suitable disclosure on the methodology for controller 100 to signal motor hand control circuit 109 to step the respective stepper motor a predetermined number of steps in a direction to indicate an increased value (if the new measurement is greater than the previous measurement) or in the opposite direction if the new measurement is less than the previous measurement.
Although the preferred construction is the use of stepper motors as disclosed herein, it should be understood that the present application is not so limited. For example, other types of actuation mechanisms, may be used in place of the stepper motors disclosed herein, while still remaining within the scope of the present invention. Accordingly, in these embodiments, it should be understood that an actuation mechanism would be operatively coupled to the controller and would rotate the at least one display hand in at least one of a clockwise and counterclockwise direction in predefined increments.
Once again, the '450 Patent (and the patents cited therein) describes a plurality of examples of using sensors to measure and display information, such as, but not limited to, altitude or compass headings, parameters such as body temperature, heart rate, blood sugar levels or blood pressure, or other physiological parameters using noninvasive techniques can be measured, including lung capacity.
The preferred dial assembly, generally indicated at 50, is a liquid crystal display assembly. In the preferred embodiment of the present invention, a conventional (e.g. Mylar) dial is thus omitted. Doing so provides the advantages set forth herein, some of which will be disclosed below.
Many publicly available documents provide adequate descriptions of how a liquid crystal display, and in the preferred embodiment, being a cholesteric liquid crystal display, works. Because it is believed that the construction of a cholesteric liquid crystal display is extremely well known by those skilled in the art (see, for example, all the existing patents assigned to Kent Displays, Inc. out of Kent, Ohio), the following is set forth presumably more to ensure completeness and as otherwise background information. Also, a more detailed description is provided in the aforementioned application Ser. No. 11/544,084.
It should thus be known to those skilled in the art that a preferred liquid crystal display being of the cholesteric type, which comprises a specific claimed dial assembly herein, preferably comprises a transparent glass, a plurality of liquid crystal units and a light-absorbing glass. Alternatively, as is known in the art, the liquid crystal display can be made flexible by utilizing flexible plastic materials in place of the glass components. When a voltage is applied to the dial assembly 30, the liquid crystal units of the reflective cholesteric liquid crystal display type will arrange according to the applied voltage. When there is no applied voltage, a cholesteric liquid crystal display element of the reflective type has two stable states: a planar texture and a focal conic texture.
The planar texture is a bright state, that is, the liquid crystal units arrange with a rule on the turn, and the outside light can be through the transparent glass, the liquid crystal units and the light-absorbing glass with half quantities reflect. On the other hand, the focal conic texture is a dark state, wherein the liquid crystal units irregularly arrange, and the outside light disorderly enters and is completely absorbed by the light-absorbing glass. When there is no applied voltage, the stable state of a reflective cholesteric liquid crystal display is determined by the previous applied voltage. That is, the preferred ChLCD preferably has a memory effect, as it is known that once writing of an image on the liquid crystal display is completed, the display is capable of displaying the image continuously even after the supply of electric power thereto is stopped, which means the liquid crystal display consumes little electric power.
It is assumed that those skilled in the art, as set forth in the aforementioned '084 application, know that the pixels in a display section of a cholesteric liquid crystal display are controlled by a plurality of column electrodes C1, C2 and a plurality of row electrodes R1, R2. The pixels are disposed on crossing areas between the column electrodes and the row electrodes. However, for completeness, the following is set forth:
In a simplified example, controller 100 may be coupled to a driver, which itself is coupled to the ChLCD assembly. One or more busses of row and column lines/electrodes are provided to operate the corresponding number of displays, as disclosed herein. Thus, the number of actual lines is dictated by the number of displayable areas desired on dial assembly 50, and thus the proper number and method of operationally coupling the LCD, whether a ChLCD or otherwise, to the driver and/or controller circuitry would be understood by one skilled in the art. In this way, the driving means can provide driving signals to the respective display sections and the controller, operatively coupled to the driving means, can provide signaling to the driving means to provide the driving signals. It should also be understood that the underlying circuitry and timekeeping functionality to provide the proper signaling and keep the proper time, date, and day information (and hour demarcations) is well known to those skilled in the art. Reference numeral 140 is provided in
Features and advantages of the present invention will now be made with reference to
For example,
Just as importantly,
Thus with the incorporation of LCD display as the dial itself, the scales of the displays could vary based on the sensed parameter readings, i.e. the higher one goes, the scales change to provide the user with a more accurate hand indication. In a divers watch for example, the scale of depth of the dial assembly could vary from 1-10 feet, to 1-100 feet, to 1-1000 feet, as the sensor recognizes that the diver is increasing his/her depth.
Likewise, one or more sensors could be used to display heartrate, body temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and in accordance with the present invention, the dial assembly display itself will change depending on the display and function desired. Again, the controller and driver circuitry would be programmed to excite those pixels for which it is desired to change the display.
To be sure, the smaller displays (i.e. displays 26, 28) could also be used and can be varied to display such parameters as heartrate information, blood pressure, etc.
Lastly, for one additional but not exhaustive example,
The use of the foregoing constructions and arrangements to display tide/moon information, pill taking and timers should be considered exemplary and not in a limiting sense, as one skilled in the art should be able to envision many other advantageous uses of the present invention, all while remaining within the scope of the claims.
It can thus be seen that dial assembly 50 can display various scales (or displays for different parameters) that are particular to the desired displayable information. In this way, a single electronic device can be manufactured with all of the aforementioned modes being selectively displayable on one (or more) display and in one electronic device. Additionally and/or alternatively, dial assembly 50 could display the actual mode titles (e.g. “HR,” “TIMER,” “BP,” “COMPASS,” etc.), thus allowing the user an ability to see the modes through which he/she is cycling. In a similar manner, the scales for a single mode can vary as well, since one skilled in the art would know how to excite the appropriate LCD crystals to have a scale, grid or other measuring design appear on the top surface of dial assembly 50.
Moreover and importantly, controller 100, knowing the mode, the scale appearing on the top surface of dial assembly 30, and the position of the rotors for the appropriate motors M1-M4, could coordinate the display such that any mode could be displayed by the use of differing displayable scales.
It will thus be seen that the present invention is both patentably different from and a significant improvement over the cited prior art timepieces. Specifically, the present invention provides a unique way to clearly display, and makes easily comprehensible, information relating to external parameters, as well as time-based or nontime-based information (e.g. hour demarcations) that may be programmed into or otherwise stored in the timepiece. Additionally, the present invention can incorporate a wide range of sensor circuits and arrangements for measuring external parameters and have such measurements clearly displayable and easily comprehensible, and provides an improved method, approach and thus construction to display whatever inputs it receives from the sensors.
Most importantly, the present invention provides that the display of such information is on a dial assembly, which itself is a liquid crystal display and makes up the dial itself, and in the preferred embodiment, is a cholesteric liquid crystal display.
One other important feature is worthy of mention, namely an autocalibration feature, which is also disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,113,450 as well as U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20040233791, entitled “Method And Construction For Autocalibrating An Actuation Mechanism In An Electronic Device,” and the subject matter of which is also incorporated by reference as if fully set forth herein. In this way and because of the present invention's versatility in displaying multiple parameters on one display, the present invention incorporates unique autocalibration algorithms and constructions to ensure that the display hands are always positioned correctly. In this way, even when a different display is desired (e.g. going from an altitude display (e.g.
While the invention has been particularly shown and described with respect to preferred embodiments thereof, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention.
For example, the multipurpose platform disclosed herein is applicable to the display of a wide range of additional parameters using a wide range of additional sensors, such as but not limited to, water pressure, water depth and oxygen left in a diver's tank (i.e. a diver's watch); air pressure and moisture (i.e. a weather watch); object finder (i.e. to find one's car or way back to a starting location); blood/sugar levels (a glucometer); speed and distance (a runner's watch); displaying how much money is in a debit account; and any combination of the foregoing, since the novelty lies in the multidisplay capabilities of the present invention and the dial assembly itself being of an LCD type in general and a cholesteric display in particular. As set forth above, multiple sensors can provide for a plurality of displays.
