Forget the Galaxy Ring, Samsung's now working on a smart amulet

Samsung has filed a patent for a wearable projector technology that will offer "beam image output".

The patent looks like it could beam your smartphone's display onto your palm, or a keyboard onto a desk and track your hand movements.

Samsung announced its first step into the smart ring field earlier this year with the launch of the Galaxy Ring . It offered a sleek design and a change up from other smart rings in that it doesn't require a monthly subscription – unlike the Oura Ring 4 – offering access to all the data it collects though the Samsung Health app.

But, the Galaxy Ring might not be the last device we see from the Korean tech giant that puts the company into a different wearable sector. A patent spotted by 91Mobiles has been filed by Samsung for some sort of wearable projector technology that is very sci-fi – Minority Report-esque, perhaps.

Potentially worn around the neck like an amulet or sat on a desk in front of you, it uses “beam image output” technology to project images from another device, such as a smartphone or tablet It's suggested that this could be onto your hand, to give you access to your homescreen, say, without needing to take your phone out of your pocket.

We presume the said smartphone would likely be a Galaxy phone too, of course.

The patent suggests there could be a little more to this projector technology, too. The report on 91Mobiles said the device offers a "way of modulating the beam or an innovative approach to ensuring image fidelity on different surfaces by tracking the movement of the user’s hand."

This suggests that if the device detects your hands on a table, a keyboard would be projected, while if your hand is up and facing your face, your phone's display would appear. There's said to be a gimbal within the device that allows for angle and position adjustment, as well as detail, brightness and the image size too.

Sounds pretty cool right? The only problem is that this is just a patent and as with all patents, there is no guarantee this will ever be a device that will see the light of day.

What is interesting about patents though, is they allow you to imagine what technology we might see in the future and that's always good fun, even if the devices themselves don't eventually launch.

This suggests that if the device detects your hands on a table, a keyboard would be projected, while if your hand is up and facing your face, your phone's display would appear. There's said to be a gimbal within the device that allows for angle and position adjustment, as well as detail, brightness and the image size too.

Sounds pretty cool right? The only problem is that this is just a patent and as with all patents, there is no guarantee this will ever be a device that will see the light of day.

What is interesting about patents though, is they allow you to imagine what technology we might see in the future and that's always good fun, even if the devices themselves don't eventually launch.