“Apple would really, really like you to own more than one Apple Watch,” Dennis Sellers writes for Apple World Today. “And the tech giant has been granted a patent (number 9,912,799) for ‘switching between watches or other accessories’ that would make it easy to juggle (not literally) multiple smartwatches.”
“The patent involves systems and methods for allowing a user to switch between watches that have been paired with a device such as an iPhone,” Sellers writes. “In one embodiment, the watches automatically detect a removal of a first watch from a user’s wrist and an attachment of a second watch to the user’s wrist.”
Sellers writes, “Messages from the watches are transmitted to the device to allow the device to switch the active watch from the first watch to the second watch.”
Read more, and see Apple’s patent application illustrations, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Very cool. This would work well for those who use one Apple Watch while running and/or at the gym and another for work, evening wear, etc.
Weird. Apple already does this. I have three Apple Watches and my iPhone switches seamlessly to the one on my wrist.
In fact, look at the Watch app and select a watch. At the very top of the screen, one may turn on “AutoSwitch” — Automatically connect to any paired Apple Watch when you put it on and raise your wrist.
I’m still waiting for the Watch 3 with LTE to go on sale where I live. Come on, Apple!
It’s been doing this at least ever since the series 2 came out. I kept my series 0 and wore it at night while asleep and wear the series 1 during the day. I do the same now with a series 2 and series 3. It already works exactly as described, it probably just was not protected with a patent until now. Good thing they filed it before it had been used more than a year, otherwise it wouldn’t qualify for a patent.