A recently discovered patent suggests that Google was at one point experimenting with the idea of putting a camera slap bang in the middle of the face of a smartwatch. LetsGoDigital spotted the patent, which was filed back in July 2017, earlier this week. The patent is simply titled “Camera Watch,” and contains seven diagrams of the unreleased design.
There was a time when cameras were a much more regular feature in smartwatches. Samsung, for example, included a camera on both the Galaxy Gear and Gear 2 in 2013 and 2014 respectively. However, in recent years they’ve become less common. Apple has never included a camera on an Apple Watch (although a patent suggests that it once considered putting one into the watch’s band), and cameras have been absent from other recent smartwatches from Samsung, Fossil, and Garmin.
It’s not hard to see why cameras haven’t found a permanent home in smartwatches. There’s very little room for a decent sensor and it can be difficult to get a well-framed shot out of them. And then there’s the dweeb factor. Check out how ridiculous I looked when I tried to use the Nubia Alpha smartwatch to take a photo of our video producer.
Suffice to say, any smartwatch camera like this is probably much better suited to taking selfies or making video calls.
It’s a pretty neat little design, and now that we’re seeing so many phones use tiny hole-punch cutouts for their selfie cameras (most recently the Samsung Galaxy Note 10), I’m tempted to think a design like this could actually work in a future smartwatch. Whether Google will actually make it, however, is another matter entirely.
There were rumors that the company was planning to launch a Pixel Watch last year, but Google later admitted that it wasn’t ready to produce its own watch. However, now that Google has acquired a chunk of smartwatch technology from Fossil, maybe it’s time for the company to take a second look at making its own wearable.
Comments
Oh please I wouldn’t want to make video calls from a smartwatch.
I can already imagine how sore my wrist and arm will be.
By ophh1 on 08.29.19 6:27am
Same reason why there isn´t a MacBook with a Touchscreen. Still people complain about that.
By Dominik Ziegler on 08.29.19 6:57am
I don’t know, if that was the case they would not have had the touchbar. Touchbar is also way more dweeby.
By omo on 08.29.19 12:39pm
Seriously? Another smartwatch with a hole in the middle?
There was an hybrid smartwatch released last year with a real analog hands sticking out of a hole in the middle of the screen. IT WAS A FLOP and was quickly sold with some heavy price cut to clear out the stockpile.
By NienorGT on 08.29.19 8:14am
How about they just make a watch, period. The only thing keeping me on iPhone is the shit options we have for Android Wear.
By futurefrankie on 08.29.19 8:15am
Google is not great at hardware, so calling on them to be the Android smartwatch savior is probably a waste of time
By Iamjason on 08.29.19 9:16am
They’re not great at industrial design, but you can bet that if Google had to actually make Wear OS hardware they would realise that, holy shit, the OEMs aren’t kidding about how bad this software integration experience is.
By GambaKufu on 08.30.19 3:37am
This. The company that can’t solve the enigma of tablet apps is still working on watches for which they have no modern SoC platform? And their biggest, most successful OEM has no interest in?
Google is Android’s worst enemy.
By nico_mach on 08.29.19 10:14am
check out Samsung’s Tizen watches. They’re pretty good.
By prompt on 08.29.19 12:42pm
I have my eye on the Galaxy Watch Active 2 Stainless. Though I’m hearing you lose some features when not paired to a Samsung (wanting it for a Pixel).
By futurefrankie on 08.29.19 9:01pm
How about google starts thinking about a proper smartwatch first…
By Marv89 on 08.29.19 8:25am
Could this just be for eye detection and rudimentary face unlock?
By Kakairo on 08.29.19 10:13am
What smartwatch needs face unlock? How many times will it be coming off for the nasty hole in the display to be worth it
By SoN1NjA on 08.29.19 11:14pm
Omg, why is everyone so picture happy. Not everything needs to have a picture taken of it! And, newsflash, nobody cares about your pics either! Most of them, anyway… a very small number are genuinely nice and interesting.
By CrabbyCrabberson on 08.29.19 11:06am
Name checks out.
By ThisIsTechToday on 08.30.19 1:45am
Maybe just do a cam in the bezel? Then iterate until a hole in the watch display makes sense?
By storyninja on 08.29.19 11:13am
I could see putting a camera on the side of the watch, pointed out towards your hand. You could take pictures by pointing your arm at something and tapping the on-screen shutter button.
But that wouldn’t be ambidextrous. And we don’t need another device for creep shots.
So, okay, maybe just scratch that whole idea.
By vonbaronhans on 08.29.19 11:25am
A watch with a camera is one of those things where you have to say, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
By GNTsquid on 08.29.19 12:10pm
It’s just a patent, folks.
By omo on 08.29.19 12:41pm
Nice. Now put one on shoes so it could sell really well in Japan.
By Ariez on 08.29.19 12:51pm
Yeah… How about they make WearOS not suck first? They’ve had YEARS to see what works and what people like in a smartwatch via the Apple Watch but the experience on WearOS is still fragmented, laggy, bad battery life, spotty connectivity, unreliable voice assistant, etc. Fixing that might be a better stepping stone than a gimmicky camera.
By imagio1 on 08.29.19 2:30pm
The presence of hands makes me think this is a hybrid smart watch, and that the camera is here for biometric reasons and not for video/photo.
By The Artgineer on 08.29.19 2:49pm
Camera on a watch face is really good at taking pictures of your nostrils from natural arm positions. Much akin to laptops having them at the bottom of the bezel. Doesn’t make for flattering video.
By Benji on 08.29.19 5:58pm
Say what you want but I’ve been wanting a smartwatch with a camera for FaceTime/Skype for decades.
By NYYRule on 08.29.19 10:58pm