Skip to main content

This Google patent is an odd camera hat with headphone-free personal sound

Tech support of the future could look a bit more like Google Glass and a bit less like a frustrating phone call.  A recent Google patent details a camera hat designed for live interactive sessions and emergency assistance, with a social media hint and a few odd quirks.

The hat includes a camera system, data storage, and a wireless connection. Like Snap’s Spectacles or the camera inside Google Glass, the hat would record and transmit a first-person point of view through the brim of a hat instead of a pair of glasses.

Recommended Videos

But unlike a pair of camera glasses, the patent, filed back in 2013 but only published on Tuesday, details a vibration system that tells the wearer when to turn his or her head. Two vibration modules on each side of the hat are accessed by “the remote system” — presumably by the same person watching the live video feed — to indicate which direction the wearer should turn. The idea is to get the right angle of view that remote assistance or an emergency responder needs to help without being there in person.

While the patent lists the uses as remote assistance, there is also a hint of social networking involved. According to the patent, the camera is configured to a social networking server in order to authenticate other users to access the camera feed and share images.

The camera hat is also equipped with both a microphone and speaker to allow communication between users — though not in the traditional sense. “The audio speaker is configured to create audio waves through the hat by bone conduction in the skull of the wearer of the hat,” the patent reads. While most sounds are heard through the vibration of the eardrums, Ludwig Van Beethoven discovered that sounds could also be heard through vibrations in other bones. The hat uses that concept to allow for headphone-free communication to accompany that camera feed.

Patents don’t always become physical products — while getting the camera off your face could be a more comfortable way of using wearable cameras, the vibrating instructions and speakers are a rather odd take.

Hillary K. Grigonis
Hillary never planned on becoming a photographer—and then she was handed a camera at her first writing job and she's been…
Fujifilm’s new Instax mini 41 offers more instant-print fun
Fujifilm's Instax mini 41 instant-print camera.

Fujifilm has just dropped the latest addition to the Instax instant-print family of cameras. 

The Instax mini 41 is an update on the four-year-old Instax mini 40, bringing with it a sleeker look and new features to ensure you don’t waste a single sheet of the photographic paper that you pop in the back. 

Read more
Space station meets aurora in this stunning time-lapse video
An aurora as seen from the ISS.

In his final days aboard the International Space Station (ISS), NASA astronaut Don Pettit has shared a time-lapse video (below) showing the orbital outpost flying above cities at night before passing over a stunning aurora, shimmering in the darkness.  

https://x.com/astro_Pettit/status/1909841414713704577

Read more
The new Polaroid Flip comes with sonar autofocus
The Polaroid Flip camera, launched in April 2025.

Polaroid has just unveiled a new camera for some instant analog fun.

The Flip comes with fewer features than Polaroid's pricier I-2 model, but is more advanced than the Go, Polaroid's most basic instant camera -- so it could hit the sweet spot for some folks looking for such a device.

Read more