Oliver Haslam on July 31, 2020, 7:01 pm

Future iPhones And Apple Watches Could Clean Themselves According To Latest Patents

Two new Apple patents point to tech that could allow our Apple Watches and iPhones to clean themselves.

Now, more than ever, it’s important to keep our hands and our devices clean. Keeping coronavirus at bay isn’t the only reason though – it’s just good hygiene to keep our devices as clean as possible, but it isn’t always something that springs to mind.

Sure, we wash our hands a ton, but our iPhones and even our Apple Watches? Not so much.

That’s where these two patents come in. One of the patents suggests that a mini ozone area could be used to remove “unwanted organic compounds” from inside a device. The other would use UV light to do the same thing. That’s a method that a lot of cleaning devices use on the outside of devices right now.

Apple’s patents suggest that the technology could be used on a range of sensors to try and make sure they stay clean. Bloody oxygen sensors and heartbeat sensors are two examples, for example.

At this point however, it’s important to remember that not all Apple patents find their way into shipping products. In fact, Apple likes to patent everything that its engineers come up with, meaning some pretty wacky things get patents with Apple engineers’ names on.

(Source: USPTO)