Meta files a patent to copy Vision Pro’s EyeSight feature

Meta has filed a patent for a method of replicating Vision Pro’s EyeSight feature in its own virtual reality headsets.

It’s not surprising that Meta is keeping a close eye on Vision Pro, and looking to see what lessons it can learn for its own Quest headsets; it’s somewhat more surprising that it would seek to copy a feature which has been poorly received, and that Apple is likely to drop …

Vision Pro’s EyeSight feature

The EyeSight feature uses a scan of the your face to create a virtual image of your eyes on an external display.

Apple made a big deal of this when it first announced the spatial computer, claiming that it solved one of the big problems with VR headsets – social isolation.

We developed EyeSight, because we knew more than anything, if we were going to cover your eyes, that takes away much of what is possible when you connect with people. Getting that right was at the core of the concept of the product because we wanted people to retain those connections in their actual world.

However, reviewers have not been kind, many pointing out the huge gap between Apple’s promotional images and the reality, and my own experience was that the feature is completely pointless.

Apple is expected to drop the feature when it makes a more affordable Apple Vision model.

Patently Apple spotted a Meta patent filing for what appears to be the same feature.

Meta Platforms patent is formally titled “Embedded Sensors in Immersive Reality Headset to enable Social Presence.” It also confirms that a redesign of their Quest headset or an all-new headset design is being considered to support this feature. To distinguish it from Apple’s Eyesight, Meta notes that some of the sensors in face interface my include health sensors.

The patent illustration (top right, above) looks to exactly copy EyeSight.

Patent law doesn’t allow companies to protect ideas, only methods for implementing those ideas, so companies can copy ideas and even get their own patents on methods of carrying them out.

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9to5Mac collage of images from Apple and Meta