Patent received by Apple for smart ring reveals at least one game that the wearable can play

Apple is supposedly in the process of developing its new wearable device, the Apple Ring. Samsung is said to be ready to unveil its first Galaxy Ring during the next Unpacked event to be held this summer and full-scale production of the device will reportedly start next quarter. After toying with the idea of making a smart ring for many years, Apple now seems ready to take on its rival. 

Starting back almost a decade, Apple filed for patents related to an Apple Ring including one for a ring that included a camera, and one for a ring that had NFC support to help control mobile payments.

The point of wearing a smart ring is that the sensors embedded in the part of the device that touches your finger can generate data which is then sent to your smartphone. Smart ring wearers will be able to track certain metrics related to health, fitness and exercise, and sleep. We'd imagine that an Apple Ring might add support for the Vision Pro. Based on a patent granted to Apple by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and spotted by ItHome (via Gizchina), the ring will play the game "Rock, Paper, Scissors."

The patent focused on the use of gestures to navigate the features of the Apple Ring. With that in mind, the patent explains how the Apple Ring can detect the relationship between a finger (or fingers wearing multiple rings) and other parts of the body in order to understand gestures being used by the Apple Ring wearer. The patent showed how the smart ring can respond to pinching, sliding, and snapping fingers.

The Apple Ring wearer can use a finger to draw in the palm of another hand while wearing an Apple Watch which suggests that an Apple Ring can be used to run Apple's smartwatch.

It will be interesting to see the health-related features that Apple will include on an Apple Ring. The Apple Watch has become known for saving lives thanks to its heart rate monitor, EKG sensor, fall detection and crash detection sensors, and the blood oxygen sensor (which has been removed from certain models due to a successful patent challenge by Masimo). The Apple Ring could offer the same features although the user would have to use an iPhone screen to view the results.

However, considering the recent DOJ suit against Apple claiming that the company's monopolization of the smartphone market allows it to dominate the smartwatch industry, the tech giant might have to allow an Apple Ring to work with Android handsets in addition to iPhone models.