Systems and Methods for Operating an Energy-Efficient Display
AssigneeVector Watch SRL
InventorsAndrei PITIS, Iulian B. VLAD, Ioan DEACONU
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Described systems and methods allow minimizing energy use and increasing battery life of a wearable device such as a smartwatch, by optimizing the way an image displayed to the user is updated in response to an event. In some embodiments, an image of each display object (e.g., clock hand, text, weather symbol, fitness icon) is individually stored in an image cache, such as a processor register or a separate section of memory. A new, updated on-screen image is computed dynamically, by combining cached images of the respective display objects. When the appearance of a current display object must change in response to the event, an updated image of the respective object is cached for future use.
Claims17
A wearable computing device comprising a hardware processor, a display, and an image cache, the image cache storing a plurality of images, each image of the plurality of images comprising a rendering of an object, wherein a first image of the plurality of images comprises a first set of values, each value of the first set of values indicative of a state of a pixel of a first object, and wherein the hardware processor is configured to:
- in response to detecting an occurrence of an event, compute a second image comprising a second set of values, each value of the second set indicative of a state of a pixel of a second object;
- in response to computing the second image, store the second image in the image cache;
- in response to detecting the occurrence of the event, retrieve from the image cache the first set of values;
- in response to retrieving the first set of values, combine the first set of values with the second set of values to produce a composite image, wherein combining the first set of values with the second set of values comprises determining a result of applying a pixel-wise logical operator to the first and second sets of values;
- and
- in response to producing the composite image, transmit the composite image to the display.
A method comprising:
- employing a hardware processor of a wearable computing device, in response to detecting an occurrence of an event, to compute a first image comprising a first set of values, each value of the first set indicative of a state of a pixel of a first object;
- employing the hardware processor to store the first image in an image cache of the wearable computing device, the image cache further storing a plurality of images including a second image, the second image comprising a second set of values, each value of the second set indicative of a state of a pixel of a second object;
- in response to detecting the occurrence of the event, employing the hardware processor to retrieve the second set of values from the image cache;
- employing the hardware processor to combine the first set of values with the second set of values to produce a composite image, wherein combining the first set of values with the second set of values comprises determining a result of applying a pixel-wise logical operator to the first and second sets of values;
- and
- in response to producing the composite image, transmitting the composite image to a display of the wearable computing device.
A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by a hardware processor of a wearable computing device, cause the wearable computing device to:
- in response to detecting an occurrence of an event, compute a first image comprising a first set of values, each value of the first set indicative of a state of a pixel of a first object;
- in response to computing the first image, store the first image in an image cache of the wearable computing device, the image cache further storing a plurality of images including a second image, the second image comprising a second set of values, each value of the second set indicative of a state of a pixel of a second object;
- in response to detecting the occurrence of the event, retrieve from the image cache the second set of values;
- in response to retrieving the second set of values, combine the first set of values with the second set of values to produce a composite image, wherein combining the first set of values with the second set of values comprises determining a result of applying a pixel-wise logical operator to the first and second sets of values;
- and
- in response to producing the composite image, transmit the composite image to a display of the wearable computing device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.