Electronic devices with display burn-in mitigation

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10983482-B2
Application number	US-201916277842-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 15, 2019
Priority date	Jan 3, 2019
Publication date	Apr 20, 2021
Grant date	Apr 20, 2021

Abstract

An electronic device such as a wristwatch device or other device may have a display. The display may be used to continuously display information such as watch face information. A watch face image on the display may contain watch face elements such as watch face hands, watch face indices, and complications. To reduce burn-in risk for watch face elements, control circuitry in the electronic device may impose burn-in constraints on attributes of the watch face elements such as peak luminance constraints, dwell time constraints, color constraints, constraints on the shape of each element, and constraints on element style. These constraints may help avoid situations in which static elements such as watch face indices create more burn-in than dynamic elements such as watch face hands.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An electronic device, comprising:
a housing;
a wrist band coupled to the housing;
a display that is coupled to the housing and that has pixels; and
control circuitry configured to use the display to continuously display a watch face image having hour indices distributed circumferentially around the watch face image and configured to dynamically shift a position of the hour indices on the display, wherein dynamically shifting the position of the hour indices on the display comprises repeatedly and gradually as a function of time shifting radial positions of the hour indices towards and away from a center of the watch face image while maintaining fixed circumferential positions of the hour indices, wherein the control circuitry is configured to maintain pixel usage history information for the pixels, and wherein the control circuitry is configured to use the usage history information to select a peak luminance constraint for the hour indices.

2. The electronic device defined in claim 1 wherein the watch face image has non-black portions with an overall size and wherein the control circuitry is configured to dynamically alter the overall size of the non-black portions to reduce burn-in risk.

3. An electronic device, comprising:
an organic light-emitting diode display having pixels; and
control circuitry configured to continuously display a watch face image on the organic light-emitting diode display, wherein the watch face image comprises watch face indices and watch face hands, wherein the control circuitry is configured to reduce burn-in risk for the watch face indices by repeatedly and gradually as a function of time moving the watch face indices inwardly towards a center of the watch face image and outwardly away from the center of the watch face image while maintaining fixed circumferential positions of the watch face indices, wherein the control circuitry is configured to maintain pixel usage history information for the pixels, and wherein the control circuitry is configured to use the usage history information to select a peak luminance constraint for the watch face indices.

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Koh Tae-Wook
• Nie Yiqiang
• Zhang Yifan
• Agnoli Giovanni M
• Drzaic Paul S
• Doyle David A

Classifications

• G09G2360/16

  Calculation or use of calculated indices related to luminance levels in display data · CPC title

• G09G2320/0626

  for control of overall brightness · CPC title

• G09G2320/046

  Dealing with screen burn-in prevention or compensation of the effects thereof · CPC title

• G09G5/10 Primary

  Intensity circuits · CPC title

• G09G3/20 Primary

  for presentation of an assembly of a number of characters, e.g. a page, by composing the assembly by combination of individual elements arranged in a matrix {no fixed position being assigned to or needed to be assigned to the individual characters or partial characters} · CPC title