Detailed Description
The technical solutions of the present disclosure will be described clearly and completely with reference to the accompanying drawings, and it is to be understood that the described embodiments are only some embodiments of the present disclosure, but not all embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be derived by one of ordinary skill in the art from the embodiments disclosed herein without making any creative effort, shall fall within the protection scope of the present disclosure. In addition, technical features involved in different embodiments of the present disclosure described below may be combined with each other as long as they do not conflict with each other.
The wearable device provided by the embodiment of the present disclosure can be applied to any device type suitable for implementation, such as a wrist strap device represented by a smart watch and a smart bracelet; head-mounted devices represented by smart glasses and smart headphones; for example, wearable devices represented by smart apparel; and the like.
For convenience of explanation, the wearable device is exemplified by a smart watch hereinafter. However, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the embodiments described below are equally applicable to other types of wearable devices, and the disclosure is not limited thereto.
At present, when people choose smart watches, in addition to the functions of the watches, the appearance of the watches is also an important consideration, and therefore, how to improve the texture and the aesthetic property of the appearance of the watches is one of the directions of important research of manufacturers. In order to increase the texture of the smart watch, metal materials including alloy or stainless steel have been widely applied to the design of the watch, for example, most smart watches adopt the design of a metal middle frame, and the metal middle frame is also used as a radiator of an antenna. In addition, from the design angle of outward appearance, if a metal face frame is separated at the top of metal center, then can carry out the processing of the colouring that is different from metal center and different scales to this metal face frame to block the black border of screen in order to reach pleasing to the eye cool outward appearance effect, improve equipment grade, consequently in intelligent wrist-watch, the shell is increasing increases metal material more and more.
Fig. 1 and 2 show a related art smart watch structure. As shown in fig. 1, the appearance of the smart watch includes a metal bezel 100 and a metal face frame 200, where the metal bezel 100 is a ring-shaped metal middle frame disposed around the side of the watch. In a smart watch, the metal bezel 100 not only serves as a case structure of the watch, but also needs to cooperate with a main board of the device to form a slot antenna structure.
In particular, for a smart watch, many functions need to be implemented by an antenna, such as bluetooth, satellite positioning, WiFi, talking, etc., which all need a built-in antenna to radiate electromagnetic wave signals. For the smart watch with the metal middle frame, an antenna structure is generally formed by utilizing a gap between the metal frame 100 and the watch main board, and a grounding point is arranged on the metal middle frame and connected with a feeding module on the main board, so that a corresponding antenna structure can be formed.
And metal face frame 200 is then the positive assembly structure of wrist-watch, and in intelligent wrist-watch, the effect of metal face frame 200 mainly includes two:
1) as shown in fig. 2, the screen 300 and the metal bezel 100 need to be fixedly assembled by a step, and the portion of the step supporting the edge of the screen 300 cannot be used as a display area, and appears as a "black edge" in appearance of the watch. Today, where extreme screen duty is sought, "black edges" are clearly unacceptable to users and are addressed by manufacturers for removal. And set up metal face frame 200 in the position of "black limit", then can utilize the outward appearance of metal to shelter from "black limit" structure, improve outward appearance feel greatly, promote user experience.
2) For the watch, the metal face frame 200 is used as an annular outer ring, so that various functions can be arranged on the metal face frame 200, for example, time scales are added as watch indication scales; various scales are added to serve as additional functions of the watch; various decorative structures and patterns are arranged as the appearance of the watch; and the like.
Based on this, more and more intelligent wrist-watches openly set up metal face frame 200, realize fixed connection through filling glue bonding between metal face frame 200 and the metal frame 100. However, in practical use, the inventors found that the antenna of the smart watch with the metal bezel 200 has poor consistency and performance. The inventor finds out through further research that the reason is that: for the antenna structure, the metal frame 100 and the metal face frame 200 are two separate metal bodies, and a certain small gap (generally between 0.025mm and 0.1 mm) must exist between the two metal bodies after assembly. Although the gaps are electrically isolated by filling a dielectric material such as viscose, in the actual use process of the watch, for example, when the metal face frame 200 is partially extruded, the metal face frame 200 and the metal frame 100 will generate single-point or multi-point electrical contact with unfixed positions, so that the original antenna performance is damaged, and the function of the whole watch system is further affected.
To further explain the problem, the following description is made in detail with reference to the test results in one example. For convenience of description, the antenna structure in this example is referred to as a "reference antenna," and the reference antenna may be a broadband antenna, and the structure of the reference antenna is schematically illustrated with reference to fig. 3, that is, the reference antenna is implemented by using the distance between the metal frame 100 and the internal main board of the watch, and those skilled in the art can understand the structure and the working principle of the antenna, and details thereof are not described herein again.
First, fig. 4 shows a graph of return loss (S-parameter) of the reference antenna without providing the metal bezel 200.
Secondly, it is considered that the position where the metal bezel 200 and the metal bezel 100 are electrically contacted is uncertain during the actual use of the watch. Here, as shown in fig. 5, it is assumed that the metal face frame 200 and the metal face frame 100 generate the electrical contact point P1 at the "three o' clock" position, and in order to avoid loss of generality, we rotate the electrical contact point P1 by different angles (0 °, 90 °, 215 °, 315 °) in the clockwise direction. Fig. 6 shows a graph of the return loss of the reference antenna as the electrical contact point P1 of the metal bezel 200 and the metal bezel 100 rotates.
As is apparent from fig. 6, the return loss of the reference antenna varies greatly depending on the position of P1, and many noise waves occur at many points in the entire frequency band, and the position of occurrence of the noise waves also varies depending on the position of the electrical contact point P1. It can be clearly known from the results that the electrical contacts which are not determined to exist lead to the fact that the consistency and performance of the antenna cannot be guaranteed, and the system function of the watch can be greatly influenced.
Based on the above research of the inventor, which finds the defects in the related art, the embodiments of the present disclosure provide a wearable device, and the main inventive concept of the present disclosure lies in: the metal frame 100 and the metal face frame 200 are electrically connected through a plurality of connecting parts, so that uncertain electric contact points are improved into a certain electric connection structure, the number and the positions of the electric connection points are optimized, and the consistency and the performance of the antenna are improved.
In some embodiments, the wearable device still takes the smart watch shown in fig. 1 as an example, the smart watch includes an annular metal bezel 100 and an annular metal bezel 200, the metal bezel 100 is disposed around the side of the watch, and the metal bezel 100 serves as a radiator of the antenna. The metal bezel 200 is disposed around the front edge of the watch, and the metal bezel 200 is electrically connected to the metal bezel 100 through a plurality of connecting portions. And in the plurality of connecting parts, the distance between any two adjacent connecting parts in the first direction is less than 1/4 of the wavelength of the highest operating frequency of the antenna, and the first direction is the direction in which the metal frame 100 circles.
It should be noted that in these embodiments, the connecting portion is used to enable the metal bezel 200 and the metal bezel 100 to be electrically connected at the position where the connecting portion is disposed, for example, the connecting portion may be a metal sheet disposed in a gap between the two. The specific structure and implementation of the connecting portion will be described in detail in the following embodiments, which are not shown here.
"1/4" indicating the highest operating frequency wavelength of the antenna means that, for a wristwatch, the antenna often includes a plurality of antennas, such as bluetooth antennas, satellite positioning antennas, etc., and the operating frequencies of the electromagnetic waves of these antennas are different, while "the highest operating frequency wavelength" indicates the wavelength of the antenna with the highest operating frequency among these antennas. This is explained in detail below, and is not shown here.
The "first direction" refers to a direction in which the metal frame 100 surrounds one circle. For example, as shown in fig. 1, the "first direction" is a circumferential direction of the metal frame 100, and the "distance in the first direction" is an arc length of the surface of the metal frame 100. Of course, other shapes of the bezel are equally possible, such as rectangular, diamond, triangular, or other irregular shapes, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art.
Therefore, the wearable device provided by the embodiment of the present disclosure realizes electrical connection by providing the plurality of connection portions between the metal surface frame 200 and the metal frame 100, so that electrical contact points at uncertain positions are improved to be fixed-position electrical connection, and the consistency of the antenna is ensured. And the distance between any two adjacent connecting parts in the first direction is less than 1/4 of the wavelength of the highest working frequency of the antenna, and the length of the gap for generating electromagnetic wave resonance is required to be at least 1/4 of the wavelength of the first resonance, so that the distance between any two adjacent connecting parts is less than 1/4 of the wavelength of the highest working frequency of the antenna, thereby effectively avoiding generating clutter interference and greatly improving the radiation performance of the antenna.
Particularly, this wearable equipment of disclosure, for realizing above-mentioned scheme, the design idea mainly includes two: the number and the position distribution of the electric connection points are firstly carried out; secondly, a concrete structure for realizing electric connection. These are described in detail below with reference to a specific embodiment.
Based on the operating principle of the slot antenna, the basic requirements for the slot antenna to generate an operating resonance are as follows: the slot length is at least 1/4 of the first resonant wavelength, such as a 1/4 wavelength slot antenna with an open end, a 1/2 wavelength slot antenna, and the like. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that no further details are required.
The following relationship exists between the operating frequency f of the antenna and the wavelength λ:
wherein C is the speed of light. It can be seen that the higher the operating frequency f, the smaller the wavelength λ and the smaller the requirements for the slot length. In other words, among the antennas of the watch, it is possible to satisfy antennas of other operating frequencies as long as it is guaranteed that no clutter is generated at the highest operating frequency.
Based on the above description, it can be known that the arc length of the slot formed by two adjacent connecting parts should be ensured to be less than 1/4 of the wavelength of the highest operating frequency of the antenna.
In one example, if the plurality of connection portions are not uniformly distributed in the first direction (circumferential direction), it should be ensured that the largest arc length of the arc lengths of the slots formed by two adjacent connection portions is smaller than 1/4 of the wavelength of the highest operating frequency of the antenna.
In another example, if the plurality of connection portions are uniformly distributed in the first direction, it is sufficient to ensure that each slot arc length is less than 1/4 of the wavelength of the highest operating frequency of the antenna.
For antenna performance, it is clear that uniform distribution is the most reasonable form of electrical connection distribution. Therefore, in the present embodiment, the plurality of connection portions are uniformly distributed in the first direction. Therefore, the number of the connecting parts can be determined according to the diameter or the circumference of the watch.
In one example, still taking the smart watch in the embodiment of fig. 1 as an example, the number of the connecting portions is set to be 4, and the connecting portions are uniformly distributed in the circumferential direction. The return loss plot for the antenna under this example is given in fig. 7. Without loss of generality, the four links are still turned clockwise by different angles (0 °, 30 °, 60 °), resulting in the graph shown in fig. 7.
Referring to fig. 7, it can be seen that since four electrical connection points effectively reduce the arc length between two adjacent connection portions compared to one electrical connection point in fig. 6, noise occurs only in a frequency range greater than 2.3GHz in the case of four connection portions, and has better uniformity and antenna performance in a frequency range less than 2.3 GHz.
While the example of fig. 7 may improve antenna uniformity and performance in the operating frequency range below 2.3GHz, it is not sufficient for smart watch designs.
For example, a smart watch typically includes a bluetooth antenna, a WiFi antenna, and a satellite positioning antenna, the bluetooth antenna and the WiFi antenna having a center operating frequency of 2.44GHz, and the satellite positioning antenna (GPS antenna) having a typical civil center operating frequency of 1.575 GHz. For the bluetooth antenna with the highest operating frequency, the wavelength in air is about 125mm, and the quarter wavelength is about 30 mm. For a watch with a diameter of 50mm at the most, the four connecting parts are uniformly distributed, and the arc length between two adjacent connecting parts is about 40 mm. That is, the distance between two adjacent connection portions is 40mm, which is larger than 1/4(30mm) of the wavelength of the highest operating frequency, so that noise is still generated for the bluetooth and WiFi antennas with the frequency of 2.4 GHz.
Therefore, in the embodiment of the present disclosure, it is required to satisfy the arc length between two adjacent connection portions, which is less than 1/4 of the wavelength of the maximum operating frequency. For example, in the above example, as long as the arc length of two adjacent electrical connection points is less than 30mm, the antenna can be ensured to have better consistency and performance in the band with the frequency lower than 2.4 GHz. That is, at least 6 connecting portions are arranged on the circumference of the metal frame 100, and under the condition that the 6 connecting portions are uniformly arranged, the arc length between every two adjacent connecting portions is about 26mm, so that the requirements can be completely met.
It should be noted that, although the number of electrical connection points is too large, the uniformity of the antenna may be improved, but the number of connection points is too large, which may increase the complexity of the structure and the impedance of the radiator, and therefore, in some preferred embodiments, the minimum number of connection portions satisfying the above conditions may be selected.
In the following, an embodiment in which 6 links are uniformly distributed is verified, and the return loss curve obtained by rotating the links clockwise by different angles (0 °, 20 °, 40 °) is shown in fig. 8 so as not to lose generality.
As can be seen from the results of fig. 8, in comparison with the embodiment of fig. 7 in which there are four electrical connection points, in the case of 6 electrical connection points, noise occurs only in the band having a frequency greater than 3.2GHz, while the antenna has better uniformity and performance for the band having a frequency lower than 3.2 GHz. For the smart watch, the performance guarantee below 3.2GHz is enough to meet the design requirement of a Bluetooth antenna at 2.4 GHz.
It should be noted that, as can be seen from the above description, in the present embodiment, the distance between two adjacent connection portions already satisfies the design requirement in the general state of the electrical connection between the metal bezel 100 and the metal face frame 200 through the connection portions, so that even if the metal face frame 200 is pressed, the metal face frame 200 and the metal bezel 100 have more electrical connection points, which is equivalent to increasing the number of electrical connection points on the basis of the present embodiment, the above principle shows that the inherent performance is not affected, and the effects of the present embodiment are still obtained.
Of course, it is worth explaining that the core inventive concept of the disclosed embodiments lies in: the distance between any two adjacent connecting parts in the first direction is set to be smaller than 1/4 of the maximum working frequency wavelength of the antenna. In other words, no matter how many antennas with different operating frequencies are included in the device, the other antennas can meet the requirements as long as the antenna with the maximum operating frequency is ensured to meet the design requirements.
For example, the wearable device may further include a 4G LTE antenna (0.7 GHz-2.69 GHz), a WiFi 5.8GHz antenna, a 5G n77(3.3 GHz-4.2 GHz) antenna, and the number of the connection portions is increased, so that the distance between any two adjacent connection portions is less than 1/4 of the wavelength of the highest operating frequency, without limiting the type and operating frequency of the antenna. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the present disclosure is not described in detail.
After the above description of the operation principle of the embodiments of the present disclosure, a detailed description of specific embodiments of the connecting portion is provided below.
Still taking the smart watch shown in fig. 1 as an example, as shown in fig. 2, the metal bezel 100 and the metal face bezel 200 are fastened by an assembling boss, specifically, a ring of annular assembling steps are provided on the metal bezel 100, and a ring of lugs are formed at the edge of the metal face bezel 200, so that the metal face bezel 200 and the metal bezel 100 are assembled by the cooperation of the lugs and the assembling steps. In the assembly gaps of the two, an insulating adhesive needs to be filled to form a filling structure, and the filling structure can insulate the two and realize adhesion fixation.
On this basis, the connection portion in the embodiment of the present disclosure may be disposed in the abutting gap between the metal surface frame 200 and the metal frame 100, and an electrical connection point is formed through the connection portion, so that the two are electrically connected.
In one example, as shown in fig. 9a and 9b, the connection portion 500 is 6 metal elastic pieces uniformly disposed on the metal frame 100. Specifically, 6 assembling holes are formed in the metal frame 100, each metal elastic piece is correspondingly installed in one assembling hole, one end of each metal elastic piece is fixedly arranged in the assembling hole, and the elastic end of the other end abuts against the inner side wall of the lug of the metal surface frame 200. This electrical connection is suitable for titanium alloy and aluminum alloy metal frames 100 that are not easily welded.
In another example, as shown in fig. 10a and 10b, the connection portion 500 is also 6 metal elastic sheets uniformly disposed on the metal frame 100, except that one end of the metal elastic sheet is fixedly connected to the metal frame 100 by welding, and the elastic end of the other end abuts against the inner sidewall of the lug of the metal surface frame 200. This electrical connection is suitable for use with a metal bezel 100 such as stainless steel, which is easily soldered.
In this embodiment, the elastic force applied by the metal elastic sheet to the metal surface frame 200 is in the direction of the radial outward side along the hand, so that after the metal surface frame 200 is assembled with the metal middle frame 100, the metal elastic sheet can also apply the radial force, so that the metal surface frame 200 is assembled more firmly, and meanwhile, the electrical connection point connection between the metal surface frame 200 and the metal side frame 100 is more stable.
In other embodiments, the connecting portion is configured as shown in fig. 11a and 11b, and the connecting portion is a snap 510 integrally formed on the assembling step of the metal frame 100, and the snap 510 is uniformly distributed on the circumference of the metal frame 100. A protrusion 520 is formed on one side wall of the buckle 510 facing the lug of the metal surface frame 200, so that after the metal surface frame 200 is assembled with the metal frame 100, the protrusion 520 abuts against the inner side wall of the lug of the metal surface frame 200 to realize electrical connection between the metal surface frame and the metal frame. The electrical connection method is suitable for any metal frame 100.
Of course, the structure and arrangement of the connecting portion may be any other form suitable for implementation besides the above examples, and it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the disclosure is not enumerated.
In addition, in the embodiments of the present disclosure, the wearable device is described by taking a smart watch as an example, but the wearable device of the present disclosure is not limited to the smart watch, and may be any other wearable device suitable for implementation, and the present disclosure does not limit this.
Therefore, the wearable device provided by the embodiment of the present disclosure realizes electrical connection by providing the plurality of connection portions between the metal surface frame 200 and the metal frame 100, so that electrical contact points at uncertain positions are improved to be fixed-position electrical connection, and the consistency of the antenna is ensured. And the distance between any two adjacent connecting parts in the first direction is less than 1/4 of the wavelength of the highest working frequency of the antenna, and the length of the gap for generating electromagnetic wave resonance is required to be at least 1/4 of the wavelength of the first resonance, so that the distance between any two adjacent connecting parts is less than 1/4 of the wavelength of the highest working frequency of the antenna, thereby effectively avoiding generating clutter interference and greatly improving the radiation performance of the antenna.
It should be understood that the above embodiments are only examples for clearly illustrating the present invention, and are not intended to limit the present invention. Other variations and modifications will be apparent to persons skilled in the art in light of the above description. And are neither required nor exhaustive of all embodiments. And obvious variations or modifications of the present disclosure may be made without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.