Samsung patents S Pen with remote optical zoom and built-in camera

The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and Note 9 were break-through successes and represented the best Samsung offered in flagship smartphones. At the heart of this break-through success is the S Pen stylus. The Galaxy Note 9 marked a new dawn for the S Pen; with the South Korean tech giant reinventing the stylus by adding Bluetooth support to enable different features on their then-new ultra-powerful flagship, Galaxy Note 9.

A patent for the for a possible next-generation S Pen was recently granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office. The previous generation S Pen allowed users to use the stylus as a long-range shutter button, perfect for long-distance photos. The new patent on the stylus shows significant changes are coming to the S Pen.

Smartphone manufacturers tend to struggle with optical zoom due to the added chunkiness it brings to the handset’s form factor. A report from Patently Mobile involved an electric pen device with an optical lens and an image sensor that could be used to control camera functionality directly from the electronic pen.

The patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office reads - “The electric pen device includes a control board configured to interact with an electronic device and a communication module configured to communicate by wire or wirelessly with the electronic device, so that an image or a picture taken by a camera is confirmed and an optical zoom is controlled from the external electronic device.”

If Samsung is indeed planning to move to the optical zoom functionality of their camera to an external device (S Pen), then the world will likely be introduced to a more powerful, capable and sleeker Note phone.

Patently Mobile also reported an in-built S Pen camera. A potential S Pen with a camera wouldn’t come cheap, but in theory, it could eliminate the tear-drop, punch-hole and all other types of notches, paving the way for a seamless Galaxy Note 10 display.