Woven band with different stretch regions

• US 9,938,646 B2
• Filed: 07/10/2015
• Issued: 04/10/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 03/08/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Hamada, Yoji, Rohrbach, Matthew D., Podhajny, Daniel A., Su, Ying-Liang, Weber, Douglas J., Shaffer, Benjamin A., Hatanaka, Motohide
• Primary Examiner(s): Muromoto, Jr., Bobby
• Application Number:
  US14/796,528
• Publication Number:
  US 20160255921A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,005 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A44C 5/0053 Flexible straps
• CPC Class Codes: A44C 5/0069 extensible
• CPC Class Codes: D03D 13/00 Woven fabrics characterised by the special disposition of the warp or weft threads, e.g. with curved weft threads, with discontinuous warp threads, with diagonal warp or weft
• CPC Class Codes: D03D 15/56 elastic
• CPC Class Codes: D03D 3/005 Tapes or ribbons not otherwise provided for D03D1/0005, D03D1/0011, D03D1/06, D03D1/08, D03D1/0094 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: D03D 47/347 Yarn brakes D03D47/364 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: D03D 49/04 Control of the tension in warp or cloth

Abstract

A wearable band includes a woven material having two or more stretch regions. The different stretch regions can be formed by varying the tension on subsets of the warp threads, the weft threads, or both the warp and weft threads. A system for producing the woven material can include two or more tension control devices operably connected to a processing device. Each tension control device is configured to adjust the amount of tension in a respective subset of threads (e.g., warp threads) in the woven material during a weaving operation. The processing device is configured to select thread tension patterns for the subsets of threads used during the weaving operation. Each thread tension pattern includes tension settings for the subsets of threads, where at least one tension setting in one thread tension pattern differs from the tension settings in the other tension patterns.

Claims

1. A watch band comprising:

a first band portion comprising an end configured to couple to a housing of a watch;

a second band portion comprising;

a first end comprising a connection device configured to couple to the first band portion;

a second end configured to couple to the housing of the watch; and

a woven material between the first end and the second end and having two or more different stretch regions, wherein an amount of tension in threads of the woven material varies in each stretch region to produce the two or more stretch regions.

2. The watch band as in claim 1, wherein the woven material comprises elastic warp threads.

3. The watch band as in claim 2, wherein the amount of tension in the elastic warp threads varies over a length of the woven material to produce the two or more stretch regions.

4. The watch band as in claim 2, wherein all of the elastic warp threads have the same elasticity.

5. The watch band as in claim 2, wherein a first portion of the elastic warp threads have a first elasticity and a second portion of the elastic warp threads have a second elasticity.

6. The watch band as in claim 2, wherein the woven material further comprises one or more elastic weft threads.

7. The watch band as in claim 6, wherein all of the elastic weft threads have the same elasticity.

8. The watch band as in claim 6, wherein a first portion of the elastic weft threads have a first elasticity and a second portion of the elastic weft threads have a second elasticity.

9. The watch band as in claim 1, wherein the watch band is affixed to the watch that displays time.

10. The watch band as in claim 1, wherein the watch band is removably affixed to the watch that comprises a health monitoring device.

11. A watch band comprising:

a woven material having warp threads and weft threads, the woven material having two or more different stretch regions, wherein tension in a first subset of warp threads in a first stretch region differs from tension in a second subset of warp threads in the first stretch region, the difference in tensions being in a directly weft direction, wherein the first stretch region has an elasticity in the first stretch region that is different from an elasticity of a second stretch region adjacent to the first stretch region.

12. The watch band of claim 11, wherein the tension in each subset of warp threads varies over a length of the watch band.

13. The watch band of claim 11, wherein tension in the weft threads in the first stretch region differs from tension in the warp threads in the first stretch region.

14. The watch band of claim 11, wherein the two or more stretch regions do not have any visible borders, edges, discrepancies, or boundaries between the two or more stretch regions.

15. A watch band comprising:

a woven material having warp threads and weft threads, the woven material having two or more different stretch regions, wherein tension in a subset of warp threads in a first stretch region transitions from a first tension to a second tension over a length of the first stretch region, wherein tension in the subset of warp threads transitions from the second tension to a third tension over a length of a second stretch region, and wherein a magnitude of a transition in tension of the subset of warp threads in the first stretch region is different from the magnitude of a transition in tension of the subset of warp threads in the second stretch region.

16. The watch band of claim 15, wherein tension in a second subset of warp threads has a constant tension over a length of at least one of the first stretch region and the second stretch region.

17. The watch band of claim 15, wherein the warp threads of the woven material are divided into two or more subsets and only one subset of warp threads per stretch region changes tension over a length of the stretch region.