Quick Summary
Motorola has filed a patent for a foldable mobile device with an automatically adjusting hinge based on a user's movements.
The patent was filed online and while it may never see the light of day in a commercially available handset, you never know, especially with the company's owner Lenovo.
We still remember when we first saw Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold folding phone, and what a pivotal moment it was for smartphones. It pushed the boundaries of what we all knew about our favourite rectangular slabs and offered something fresh and exciting.
That was five years ago now though, and folding phones themselves have come along way since that first commercially available device.
They are being continually pushed further, with the latest patent filed by Motorola suggesting some great things could be around the corner for the company's excellent Razr folding phone series.
The patent was spotted 91Mobiles after being filed to the US Patent Application Publication and it appears to be for a folding phone that can adjust the hinge's elevation angle automatically, based on a user's movements.
Titled "Autonomous form factor control of a foldable mobile device", it is said to use Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) first developed by NASA for the hinge, in combination with Linear Resonant Actuators (LRA). This is a motor that can move the hinge in a linear direction (as the name sort of suggests).
The hinge would be made from the SMA material it was suggested, which changes shape when heat is applied. A decent processor will also be required, as the device would need to understand the state of the hinge and the user's movements, so we suspect a little dose of AI will be on board too.
The idea would be that the phone can acknowledge whether you're moving towards it or away from it and adjust the position accordingly, not too dissimilar from software features like Apple's Centre Stage on iPads and MacBooks, Samsung's Auto Zoom on the Galaxy Z Flip 6, and Amazon's Auto Framing on Echo Show devices. They each keep you in the frame on video calls even if you move around the room. None of these see moving hinges though, of course.
It is worth noting that many patents don't actually see the light of day and remain simply ideas that have been filed in case they materialise into anything concrete.
That said, Motorola is excellent at showing off concepts. At IFA 2024 this year, for example, Lenovo (who owns Motorola) had a laptop with a hinge that automatically rotated the screen as you moved across the room, and the lid could open and close with a voice command too.
Sure, it's not available to buy, but as the company has previously been keen to show off technology ideas in physical devices, we wouldn't be surprised to see this patent materialise into something, even if that's not the next Razr handset but a concept of what could be.
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