Samsung's first rollable phone could come with a revolutionary new feature

Samsung could be planning to include a surprising new sensor in its first-ever rollable phone, according to a newly-unearthed patent. 

The patent is for an air quality sensor, one that is housed cleverly inside a device that features a rollable display. Some say this is the future of the folding display technology that Samsung has developed so much with its range of foldable phones. 

There are plenty of interesting parts to this, not least the confirmation that Samsung is indeed working on a rollable display which, according to the patent found by pigtou and xLeaks (and reported on by Yanko Design), would see the phone's display slide out to a bigger width when desired.

The patent itself relates to an airflow system, though, which would direct external air through carefully arranged channels in the phone's body past an air quality sensor. 

This would let the phone give you data on the air quality around you as you go about your day, something that not many competitors can match right now.

The sliding display would also be key to this, since the patent seems to describe a system whereby the air quality intake would be covered when the phone was in regular, compact mode, before being exposed when you open the phone to its full size.

It's possible that the airflow would also have passive cooling benefits for the phone, although there's no sign of an active, fanned intake or anything like that – these remain the purview of intense gaming phones for now. 

The data that the air quality sensor gathers could presumably be presented to the user attractively, just like you might get a step counter for your daily activity from many phones on the market today. 

As always, though, it's worth underlining that patents in the world of big tech are far from a guarantee of future features. They're often just a matter of protecting a small innovation by demonstrating how it could be used.

So, if you're hoping this makes for a soft confirmation that Samsung will have a new rollable phone model out there in the next year or two, we'd advise that you maybe don't get your hopes up too high.