JP2009150668A - Timepiece - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To easily display characters on a dial to a user, according to the inclination of a wrist watch with respect to the glance of the user. <P>SOLUTION: A timepiece 10 includes: a counting circuit part 17 for counting a current time; a liquid crystal display part 13 for displaying characters including a time counted with the counting circuit part 17; an inclination sensor 19 for detecting an inclined angle of the timepiece; and a control means displaying characters of a character size, based on calculated magnification on the liquid crystal display part 13, by regarding a prescribed designated inclined angle as a reference angle, storing the reference angle to a storing means and calculating the vertical magnification of the characters displayed on the liquid crystal display part 13, based on a relative angle between the reference angle and the inclined angle detected by the inclination sensor 19. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2009,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a timepiece in which characters on a dial are displayed in a digital display form.

  In an analog wristwatch, a number (Arabic numerals or Roman numerals) or letters indicating “hour” out of time and mainly “hour and minute” are arranged along the outer periphery on the dial, and from the position of the short hand and long hand, The user can know the current time. In a digital wristwatch, a liquid crystal panel is arranged on a dial face, and numbers and characters indicating time are displayed on the liquid crystal panel, so that the user can know the current time.

  In addition, a digital wristwatch is also put into practical use, and a digital watch with an analog display form that digitally displays a number indicating the hour along the outer circumference of the short hand, the long hand, and the dial. (Patent Document 1).

Since the wristwatch user bends the elbow or tilts the wrist to look at the wristwatch worn on the wrist, the wristwatch dial has various angles with respect to the user's line of sight.
JP-A-8-15464 JP 2005-114572 A JP 2005-114573 A

  For example, in Patent Document 2 and Patent Document 3, in an analog wristwatch, the dial itself is formed in a three-dimensional manner, or the characters arranged around the dial are formed in a three-dimensional manner in the lateral direction. In addition, by applying letters or the like, even when the wristwatch is tilted in a certain direction, the side face letters are displayed, and the wristwatch has been proposed in which the visibility is improved and the design is changed.

  However, in the wristwatches proposed in Patent Document 2 and Patent Document 3 described above, a character or the like is engraved on the three-dimensional dial or the side of the character arranged on the dial. Unless tilted to an angle, characters on the side surface cannot be visually recognized, and the case where visibility is improved is limited.

  SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide a timepiece that can display characters on a dial in an easy-to-view manner for the user according to the inclination of the wristwatch with respect to the user's line of sight.

The object of the present invention is to measure the current time,
In a timepiece comprising display means arranged on a dial and displaying characters including the time counted by the timekeeping means,
Tilt detecting means for detecting the tilt angle of the watch;
Based on the relative angle in the vertical direction of the timepiece between the reference angle and the inclination angle detected by the inclination detection means, with the specified predetermined inclination angle as a reference angle, the reference angle is stored in the storage means. And a control means for calculating a vertical magnification of the character displayed on the display means and displaying on the display means a character having a character size based on the calculated magnification. Is done.

  In a preferred embodiment, when the relative angle is within a predetermined range, the control means causes the display means to display characters having a character size based on the calculated magnification.

  In a more preferred embodiment, the control means stops the display of the character when the relative angle is outside a predetermined range.

In another preferred embodiment, the display means displays characters representing time along the outer periphery on the dial,
The control means calculates a display position where the character of the calculated character size is to be displayed.

  In a more preferred embodiment, the control means calculates the display position of the character located above the dial so that the position of the upper end of the character is the same before and after the size change. For the character located on the side, the display position is calculated so that the position of the lower end of the character is the same before and after the size change, and the character located at the center in the vertical direction of the dial is the vertical direction of the character The timepiece according to claim 2, wherein the display position is calculated so that the center position is the same before and after the size change.

  Further, in a preferred embodiment, it has a short hand and a long hand, and the short hand and the long hand are driven by a pointer driving mechanism.

  In another preferred embodiment, the hours and minutes are displayed digitally.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, it becomes possible to provide the timepiece which can display the character on a dial easily to a user according to the inclination of a wristwatch with respect to a user's eyes | visual_axis.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of a watch circuit according to the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 1, the wristwatch 10 includes a CPU 11, an operation unit 12, a liquid crystal display unit 13, a driver 14, a ROM 15, a RAM 16, a timing circuit unit 17, an oscillation circuit unit 18, a tilt sensor 19, a pointer driving mechanism 20, and a pointer unit. 21 is provided. As will be described later, the wristwatch 10 according to the present embodiment is a digital display form of numbers and characters displayed on the dial along the outer periphery, and is an analog pointer-type timepiece. In the present embodiment, numbers are displayed on the dial, but what is displayed on the dial is not limited to numbers, and there may be characters. Hereinafter, in this specification, what is displayed on the dial is referred to as “character” including letters and numbers.

  The CPU 11 reads a program stored in the ROM 15 at a predetermined timing or in response to an operation signal input from the operation unit 12, writes the program in the RAM 16, and instructs each unit constituting the timepiece based on the program. And transfer data. Specifically, for example, based on the inclination data acquired from the inclination sensor 19, the size of the character to be displayed on the liquid crystal display unit 13, the arrangement position of the character, and the like are calculated.

  The operation unit 12 includes a switch (not shown) for instructing execution of various functions of the watch, and outputs a corresponding operation signal to the CPU 11 when the switch is operated. The liquid crystal display unit 13 includes a liquid crystal panel 30 disposed on a dial of a clock, and displays characters including numbers indicating time on the liquid crystal panel 30 based on data sent from the CPU 11 via the driver 14. To do.

  The ROM 15 stores a system program, an application program, data, and the like for operating a clock and realizing a predetermined function. The RAM 16 is used as a work area for the CPU 11 and temporarily stores programs and data read from the ROM 15 and data processed by the CPU 11.

  The clock circuit unit 17 clocks the current time based on the clock signal supplied from the oscillation circuit unit 18. The tilt sensor 19 obtains the tilt direction and the tilt angle, for example, by detecting changes in capacitance of the plurality of electrodes. The tilt sensor 19 can be of any structure. For example, it may have a gyro and an acceleration sensor.

  The pointer drive mechanism 20 includes a gear and the like, and rotates the gear based on a signal from the timing circuit unit 17 to drive the pointer unit 21 having a long hand and a short hand.

  FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view of the dial of the wristwatch 10 according to the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 2, the dial 22 is provided with mechanical long hands 23 and short hands 24. The long hand 23 and the short hand 24 are driven by the pointer driving mechanism 20. The dial 22 is provided with a liquid crystal panel 30. Characters (see reference numerals 31 to 34) can be displayed along the outer periphery of the dial 22 by the liquid crystal panel 30. In the example of FIG. 2, numerals “12”, “3”, “6”, and “9” are displayed at the positions indicating the 12:00, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock, and 9 o'clock of the short hand, respectively. Of course, the present invention is not limited to such a display mode, and may be a display mode that displays each hour from 1 o'clock to 12 o'clock. Further, another character such as a day of the week or a date may be displayed on the liquid crystal panel 30.

  When the user views the dial 22 so as to face the dial 22 of the watch 10, that is, when the face of the dial 22 and the line of sight of the user are orthogonal, the characters on the dial 22 are It can be seen as shown in FIG. However, when the dial 22 is tilted and the surface thereof and the user's line of sight have an angle other than a right angle, as the inclination increases, the characters on the dial 22 that are visually recognized by the user are shown in FIG. ) Becomes smaller. In the present embodiment, even when the wristwatch 10 (the dial 22) is tilted, processing is performed so that the user can easily recognize the characters on the dial 22.

  FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing processing executed in the wristwatch 10 according to the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 3, the CPU 11 of the wristwatch 10 determines whether or not a reference angle setting instruction from the user has been received (step 301). It is determined as Yes in step 301 by a predetermined operation of the operation unit 12 by the user.

  If it is determined Yes in step 301, the CPU 11 sets the operation mode as the angle initialization mode, acquires the current tilt angle of the wristwatch 10 from the tilt sensor 19, and stores the tilt angle in the RAM 16 as the reference angle. (Step 302). Next, the CPU 11 displays characters on the dial 22 using the operation mode as a display mode. The CPU 11 acquires the current inclination angle from the inclination sensor 19 and determines whether or not the difference between the inclination angle and the reference angle, that is, the relative angle is within a predetermined viewing range (step 304).

  FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the visible range according to the present embodiment. The position of the timepiece 10 shown in FIG. 5 is a position at the time of setting the reference angle, the plane of the dial 22 of the timepiece 10 (see reference numeral 502) is the reference angle of the relative angle “0”, and the user's line of sight ( Orthogonally (see reference numeral 501). The visual recognition range according to the present embodiment corresponds to “−β <relative angle <α” from when the timepiece 10 is tilted + α degrees to the near side when viewed from the user until it is tilted −β degrees to the far side. The values of α and β may be the same or different. For example, if α = β = 60 degrees, the viewing range is 120 degrees with “−60 degrees <relative angle <60 degrees”.

If YES is determined in step 304, the CPU 12 calculates the magnification of the character to be displayed based on the calculated relative angle, and calculates the character size of the character to be displayed based on the magnification (step 305). ). FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining the calculation of the character size according to the present embodiment. As shown in FIG. 6A, when the user's line of sight (reference numeral 600) and the face of the dial (reference numeral 601) are orthogonal to each other, the height h letter (refer to reference numeral 611) remains as it is. It is visually recognized by the user at h. On the other hand, let us consider a case where the wristwatch 10 is tilted so that the face of the dial (reference numeral 602) forms θ from the face (reference numeral 601) defining the reference angle. In this case, when the user views the character (reference numeral 612) with the line of sight 600, the height h ′ of the character (reference numeral 612) is:
h ′ = h cos θ
It becomes. Therefore, in this embodiment, even when the wristwatch 10 is tilted, even when the user looks at the character with the line of sight 600, the size of the character is the user's line of sight (reference numeral 600) and the character. The height h ″ of the character (reference numeral 622) shown in FIG. 6B is calculated as follows so that it is the same size as when the surface of the board (reference numeral 601) is orthogonal.

h ″ = h / cos θ
In this case, when the user looks at the character (reference numeral 622) with the line of sight 600, the height is h.

  The CPU 12 calculates the arrangement position of each character enlarged with the calculated character size (step 306). In the present embodiment, the arrangement position of the character (number “12”) located above the dial is calculated so that the position of the upper end of the character is the same before and after enlargement. The arrangement position of the character (number “6”) located below the dial is calculated so that the position of the lower end of the character is the same before and after the enlargement. In addition, the positions of the characters (number “3” and number “9”) positioned at the center of the dial in the vertical direction are calculated so that the vertical center of the character is the same before and after the enlargement. .

  The CPU 12 displays each character at the size calculated at step 305 and at the arrangement position calculated at step 306 (step 307). FIG. 7A is a diagram showing an example of a dial visually recognized by the user when the user's line of sight and the face of the dial are orthogonal to each other, and FIG. It is a figure which shows the example of the dial face visually recognized by the user when it is made. As shown in FIG. 7B, when the dial 30 is inclined, the shape of the dial 30 is distorted as compared to the dial shown in FIG. The displayed numbers (see reference numerals 71 to 74) have substantially the same size as that shown in FIG. 7A (see reference numerals 31 to 34). Further, since the position of the character is adjusted, the character is visually recognized by the user without being interrupted.

  If it is determined No in step 304, the CPU 11 may stop displaying characters on the liquid crystal display unit 13 itself. This is because if the wristwatch is tilted beyond the viewing range, it is highly possible that the user will not be able to see the characters. As a result, wasteful power consumption can be prevented.

  According to the present embodiment, if the tilt angle from the reference angle is within the viewing range, the character size is enlarged according to the tilt, and the character placement position is adjusted and displayed on the dial. . Therefore, regardless of the orientation of the user's arm and the position of the face, the user can visually recognize a character having a predetermined size.

  In particular, if the inclination angle from the reference angle is within a predetermined range (within the viewing range), it is possible to prevent unnecessary processing when the character cannot be viewed by changing the character size. In addition, when the wristwatch is tilted beyond the viewing range, it is considered that the user cannot visually recognize the character, and the display of the character itself is stopped, thereby preventing unnecessary power consumption. .

  Further, in the present embodiment, characters representing time are displayed along the outer periphery on the dial, and the display position where the character should be displayed is optimized according to the position of the character, and is visually recognized by the user. Making it easy. In particular, the display position of the character located above the dial is calculated so that the position of the upper end of the character is the same before and after the size change. The display position is calculated so that the position of the bottom edge is the same before and after the size change, and the character located in the center of the dial in the vertical center is the position of the center of the character in the vertical direction before and after the size change. The display position is calculated so as to be the same.

  The present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and various modifications can be made within the scope of the invention described in the claims, and these are also included in the scope of the present invention. Needless to say.

  In the above embodiment, the present invention is applied to a watch that is a digital display form in which characters on the dial are displayed on a liquid crystal panel and is an analog pointer type having a short hand and a long hand. It is not limited to this. For example, the present invention is applied to a digital clock that displays not only characters on a dial but also short and long hands in a digital manner, and a digital clock that displays time and date and time in a completely digital display format. It is also possible to apply.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration of a watch circuit according to the present embodiment. FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view of the dial of the wristwatch according to the present embodiment. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing processing executed in the wristwatch according to the present embodiment. FIG. 4 is a diagram for explaining a state of a dial visually recognized by a wristwatch user. FIG. 5 is a diagram for explaining the visible range according to the present embodiment. FIG. 6 is a diagram for explaining the calculation of the character size according to the present embodiment. FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating the state of the dial visually recognized by the wristwatch user, in which the character size and the like are changed according to the present embodiment.

Explanation of symbols

10 Watch 11 CPU
12 Operation unit 13 Liquid crystal display unit 14 Driver 15 ROM
16 RAM
17 Timing circuit section 18 Oscillation circuit section 19 Tilt sensor 20 Pointer drive mechanism 21 Pointer section

Claims (7)

A time measuring means for measuring the current time;
In a timepiece comprising display means arranged on a dial and displaying characters including the time counted by the timekeeping means,
Tilt detecting means for detecting the tilt angle of the watch;
Based on the relative angle in the vertical direction of the timepiece between the reference angle and the inclination angle detected by the inclination detection means, with the specified predetermined inclination angle as a reference angle, the reference angle is stored in the storage means. And a control unit that calculates a vertical magnification of the character displayed on the display unit and causes the display unit to display a character having a character size based on the calculated magnification.   2. The timepiece according to claim 1, wherein when the relative angle is within a predetermined range, the control unit causes the display unit to display a character having a character size based on the calculated magnification.   The timepiece according to claim 2, wherein the control unit stops the display of the character when the relative angle is out of a predetermined range. The display means displays characters representing time along the outer periphery of the dial,
The timepiece according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the control means calculates a display position where the character of the calculated character size is to be displayed.   For the character located above the dial, the control means calculates the display position so that the position of the upper end of the character is the same before and after the size change, and for the character located below the dial, The display position is calculated so that the position of the lower end of the character is the same before and after the size change, and the character located at the vertical center of the dial has the size of the vertical center of the character The timepiece according to claim 4, wherein the display position is calculated so as to be the same before and after the change.   6. The timepiece according to claim 4, further comprising a short hand and a long hand, wherein the short hand and the long hand are driven by a pointer driving mechanism.   The timepiece according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the hour and minute are digitally displayed by numerals.

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