Apple is still considering ways to turn the Apple Watch into a camera

Apple is once again trying to integrate a camera into the Apple Watch. The company's latest idea is to put a camera into the Digital Crown. With this, users can take photos on their wrist by pointing the Digital Crown at an object.

Today’s patent shows that users can remove the watch when needed, as some users wear the Digital Crown on their wrist, pointing inwards. Figure 6 shows the release mechanism in the accessory interface so users can easily remove the watch from the strap to take photos. Apparently, Apple says there are other ways to achieve this, which would allow the watch to be removed from the wrist along with the band.

The patent also highlights a feature that the digital crown camera will have a light emitter that can illuminate the scene when taking a photo. It works with both physiological sensing and camera flash, so users can provide better lighting for their images.

If the Digital Crown does become a camera, it seems unlikely that it will support FaceTime. It seems like the camera will be used purely for photos or videos. With FaceTime support, there's one less reason to use our iPhones.

Apple has considered installing cameras on watches before. Back in 2019, the tech giant patented a watch strap that would integrate a camera into the strap instead of the watch. The idea of ​​having the camera on a wrist strap improves the problem of correctly tilting the photo frame from the wrist.

While we don’t have a camera on the Apple Watch yet, other companies like Wristcam have developed their own solutions. Instead of a camera on the Digital Crown, Wristcam has front- and rear-facing cameras on the strap. The band lets you record video messages and take photos and videos from the watch. However, it's an expensive $299 solution that's not suitable for the average user.

Overall, it seems there will never be an easy way to take photos from our wrists. There's always those awkward turns of the wrist when trying to view your subject on a small screen. For a device designed to take us away from the iPhone, one thing it's missing is a camera. While it may raise privacy concerns, I think Apple will still make the camera on the watch work.

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