A lot of information has been leaked about the new Airpods pro, which Apple is already working on. The same could be launched or unveiled at the Apple event, which is due to happen in October for the launch of the all-new iPhone 12. Recently, Apple has been awarded a new patent, which could turn out to be the new feature in the upcoming or future models of Airpods pro. The new patent brings in a feature where the true wireless earbuds could be controlled using “in-air gestures“.
The patent that has been given to Apple was detected by Patently Apple, and it describes how the in-air gestures could work with the already provided touch controls. Although the patent does not provide any technical information about the feature or any kind of gestures that could start or stop a specific function, it could easily guess that moving the hand over the earphone in a certain way would help the user to control features like Play, Pause, Skip, Next, etc. The feature uses capacitive sensors to detect the proximity of the user to the AirPods.
The following explanation was given in the patent for the feature, “a capacitive sensor may be incorporated into an enclosure of the wearable audio device and used to detect a capacitance between an electrode of the sensor and the user“.
“As the user moves toward (and optionally presses on) the enclosure, the capacitance changes. This change (or absolute value of the capacitance) may be used to determine the position of a user’s finger relative to the enclosure.“
There is no information on when the feature will be added to the AirPods pro, but definitely be a lot helpful for the users when touching or voice controls are not a possibility. Another version of the Airpods pro model called the Airpods pro lite might also see the addition of this feature.