A recently published Apple patent indicates that various Apple devices, including the iPhone and Apple Watch, could gain the Apple Watch’s method of using speakers to push out unwanted water. The company may also be researching how to use heat to evaporate moisture.
The system is designed to protect a series of sensitive components that can be wrecked by even small amounts of water.
As of 2015, the company was revealed to be researching iPhone with silicon seals to protect them. The technology presumably didn’t work, but as of 2018, Apple was researching another sealing technology.
In 2016, the Apple Watch Series 2 debuted with its water-ejection feature, which the company seems to be working on via two new patents.
“Systems for increased drying of speaker and sensor components that are exposed to moisture,” is the first of the two US Patents. It’s concerned with having a frame for a device, a frame that contains sensors.
“[Cameras, GPS etc] functions suffer when the portable electronic device is exposed to moisture,” says the patent. “Accordingly, there is a need to expedite removal of the moisture within internal cavities of the portable electronic device in order to quickly resume performing these user functions.”
This patent actually seems to build on the Apple Watch system because it, too, relates “to systems that utilize a speaker to increase drying of an internal cavity of a portable electronic device previously exposed to moisture.” It involves having a diaphragm that “is capable of actuating in response to [a] magnetic field,” which is a speaker in all but name.
These patents are also concerned with protecting the devices from having water seep into speaker grills, or where there is “an opening that extends into the cavity.”
The patent goes on to describe various methods of detecting water moisture, and how different materials need different systems. It’s then concerned with how to get that water out of the system, and that’s also the primary focus of the second patent.
“Lid with embedded water detection and heater,” the second patent, is about using pressure sensors. These can detect moisture and “facilitate its elimination.”
“The micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) type pressure sensors used in smart phones or smart watches are generally capacitive-type pressure sensors,” says Apple. “Pressure sensors using interim gel have been widely used in the microelectronic devices, but the gel can be susceptible to environmental contaminations and water occlusion.”
The second patent proposes using a gel lid, which covers at least part of a device, and then deploys electrodes around it. Through “measuring a dielectric permittivity between at least two of the plurality of electrodes,” the system can register that there is water present.
These same electrodes are then “configured to eliminate the water via heat generation.” Rather than pushing the water out, the heated element evaporates it instead.
The first patent is credited to five inventors, including Matthew A. Donarski, whose prior work includes a related patent concerning speaker diaphragms.
Three inventors credited on the lid patent, and those include Ashwin Balasubramanian, also known for working on a system to make iPhones function as emergency beacons.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.
Via AppleInsider, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (1, 2)