Apple Inc.

Xi Chen

Praveesh Chandran

Tingjun Xu

Yuta Kuboyama

Yifei Wang

Nicholas P Allec

Xiaoyang Zhang

Ryan M Buck

A wearable electronic device such as an earbud, wristwatch, or other device may be provided with a skin sensor. The skin sensor may use optical measurements to detect the presence of skin adjacent to the electronic device. The sensor may have first and second light-emitting devices such as infrared devices that emit light at respective first and second infrared light wavelengths. Reflected light is monitored by a photodetector. Control circuitry can initiate or pause audio playback or take other actions in response to determining from the reflected light measurements that skin is present. The sensor may have a thin-film interference filter or other optical structure that overlaps the first and second light-emitting devices to narrow the angular spread of light emitted from the skin sensor. This reduces tilt sensitivity and helps enhance skin sensor accuracy.

Electronic devices with skin sensors

Growing community of inventors

Millbrae, CA, United States of America

Xi Chen