Nokia files patent for active bezels on phones and tablets

Nokia seems to have filed a patent for active bezels in future models of its Nokia Lumia smartphones and tablets. With active bezels, Nokia would be able to increase the size of the touch-sensitive area of a device, by making the bezels respond to touch input.

Nokia also has implemented a solution to avoid accidental touches. According to the patent, Nokia has solved this problem by making the bezels active only after the user presses down on part of the bezel with a force that would exceed a predetermined amount. This would allow the phone or tablet to know that the user wishes to interact using touch input on that part of the device. A visual indication or haptic feedback could be used to let the user know that the bezels are active.

"A force component of the touch input may be detected and compared to a predetermined force threshold. In cases in which the force component of the touch input exceeds the predetermined force threshold, user interaction with the content at that location may be enabled. In this way, the force exerted by the user in applying a touch input in the bezel area may be considered an indication of the user’s intent to interact with corresponding content within the bezel, and such interactions may be provided for accordingly." - Nokia patent filing

The active bezels could be disabled by merely allowing it to be active for a certain period of time. The patent even goes as far as saying that the amount of time that the bezels remain active could correspond with the amount of force used to enable the feature in the first place.


source - Nokia Power User