Samsung patents an S-Pen with a built-in camera

A new development from Samsung has surfaced and it doesn’t have anything to do with the upcoming Galaxy S10. A patent originally filed back in February of 2017 was recently granted to Samsung by the US Patent and Trademark Office for an S-Pen with an optical system and image sensor inside – so, a camera.

The patent titled Electronic pen device having optical zoom details an image of an S-Pen with an optics system in the upper section of the pen. The diagram shows four lenses aligned before an image sensor, there would also be a “communications module” to transmit the image data back to the host device. Based on the diagram, there’s also a “control key” that could manipulate a zoom feature of said camera.

FIG. 3 shows us the four main components of the S-Pen of the patent: an optical system, image sensor, control key, and controller.

Keep in mind this doesn’t mean the upcoming Galaxy Note will necessarily have a camera in its S-Pen. While FIG. 4B confirms that Samsung intends to put such an S-Pen in a future Galaxy Note device, Samsung also outlines that slots could be put in future laptops or computer displays for storing the S-Pen.

Does this mean we’ll see a Samsung Galaxy Note10 with a camera in the S-Pen? We can’t rule that out but we also can’t be certain. Companies often patent features like this but they may never pass the development stage.

Source | Via