Rumor | Next-gen Samsung Galaxy Watches will integrate a projector for an on-hand "Beam" display

Samsung Electronics' engineers may have been watching too much of the kind of content in which projected displays replace every screen (and, occasionally, every touch UI) going, mirroring the 'total immersion' dream of many tech OEMs out there. Then again, the South Korean giant has made that kind of future all the more plausible with one of its latest patents.

The IP - published in early February 2023 by the United States Patents and Trademarking Office (USPTO) is titled "Wearable Electronic Device Including Projection Display", and certainly lives up to that description. It is outlined as a smartwatch with side-mounted LEDs in a precision arc so as to throw its display on the surface immediately in front of it - the back of the user's hand, ideally.

Then again, this potential future Galaxy Watch might not look a lot like its predecessors, as its new tech might need more of an Apple Watch-like form-factor. It also lacks touch-response in its current form, although that may not be beyond the realms of possibility in the future.

Samsung is no stranger to packing miniaturized projectors into market-ready consumer devices - the Galaxy Beam series is proof enough of that. It would be interesting to see if it would be any more successful were it to return in wearable form some time soon.

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