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US 2011/0298766 A1Published application
Light sensing device having a color sensor and a clear sensor for infrared rejection
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorChing Yu John Tam
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A light sensing device has a first filter to block visible light in a light path. The light sensing device also has a first color sensor and a clear sensor, to detect light in the light path after the first filter. A light intensity calculator computes a measure of the intensity of visible light in the light path, based on a difference between (a) an output signal of the first color sensor, and (b) an output signal of the clear sensor. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.
Claims17
A light sensing device comprising:
- a substrate on which there is a visibly opaque coating exposed to visible light in a light path;
- a first color sensor having a first color filter and a clear sensor having no color filter, to detect light in said light path after the substrate;
- and
- a light intensity calculator to compute a measure of the intensity of visible light, based on a difference between (a) an output signal of the first color sensor and (b) an output signal of the clear sensor.
1 more element
An electronic device, comprising:
- a housing having integrated therein
- a front cover having a light transparent structural layer, the light transparent structural layer having a user-interactive display screen portion and an ambient light sensor portion, the ambient light sensor portion contains a visibly opaque layer that limits visible light outside the device from passing into a light path in the housing,
- a processor coupled to control brightness of the display screen portion based on a calculated measure of intensity of ambient light outside the device, and
- a first color sensor and a clear sensor, to detect light in said light path after the first filter,
- wherein the processor is to calculate said measure of ambient light intensity based on a difference between (a) an output signal of the first color sensor and (b) an output signal of the clear sensor.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.