Fingerprint Sensor Signal Keeps Display Active
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Solution Overview
Problem
Electronic devices often power off or transition to a lower power state due to user inactivity, requiring users to manually restart them, which can be cumbersome.
Innovation Solution
A system that includes a fingerprint sensor coupled to a processing system, periodically checking for finger presence and alerting the operating system to keep the display screen active as long as the finger is interacting with the sensor, and transitioning it to a lower power state when the finger is no longer detected.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of energy
If the display screen transitions to a lower power state due to detected user inactivity, then power consumption is reduced, but user convenience deteriorates as users must manually restart the device
Solution Approach 1:
The fingerprint sensor automatically detects finger presence and triggers screen activation without requiring manual user intervention. The system serves itself by using the sensor's natural detection capability to wake the display, eliminating the need for users to press buttons or perform other actions to restart the screen after it enters sleep mode.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces mechanical interaction (physically pressing the device to wake it) with a sensor-based detection system. The fingerprint sensor uses capacitive or optical fields to detect the presence of a finger, substituting the mechanical wake-up action with an automated sensing and signaling mechanism that communicates finger presence to the operating system.
2Ease of operation
If the display screen remains in an active state continuously, then user convenience is improved, but power consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The display screen's power state is made dynamic rather than static. The system automatically transitions between active and sleep states based on real-time finger presence detection. When a finger is detected on the fingerprint sensor, the screen remains or becomes active; when no finger is present, the screen enters sleep mode, creating an adaptive power management system that responds to user behavior.
Solution Approach 2:
The fingerprint sensor provides continuous feedback to the operating system about finger presence. This feedback loop allows the system to make real-time decisions about display power state, adjusting between active and sleep modes based on whether a user is currently interacting with the device, thereby optimizing power consumption while maintaining convenience during actual use.
3Reliability
If the fingerprint sensor continuously checks for finger presence, then screen activation reliability is improved, but processing overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of continuous monitoring, the fingerprint sensor performs periodic finger presence checks at predetermined intervals. This periodic sampling approach maintains reliable detection capability while significantly reducing the processing overhead compared to continuous monitoring. The sensor wakes at scheduled times to check for finger presence and reports findings to the operating system, balancing reliability with efficiency.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods for keeping a display screen active that include a fingerprint sensor coupled to a processing system and configured to perform a check for a presence of a finger. The processing system may be configured to alert an operating system to cause a display screen to be in an active state based on a detection of the finger; perform a future finger sense action to detect that the finger is still interacting with the fingerprint sensor; report to an operating system, based on detecting that the finger is still interacting with the fingerprint sensor, that the display screen should remain in the active state, wherein the operating system causes the display screen to be in the active state based on the report.