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Sony · Camera · Filed May 12, 2025 · USPTO published Jun 18, 2026 · Jun 18 release

Sony's New Patent Keeps Tracking Cameras Off Until Something Worth Tracking Gets Close

Sony has filed a patent for a positioning system where cameras don't bother turning on unless the thing they're supposed to track is actually close enough to matter — a simple idea that could meaningfully cut power draw in tracking setups.

By · Updated · 3 min read

Sony Patent: Cameras That Only Activate When You're Close, figure from US 2026/0172672 A1
Figure from the official USPTO publication.
Publication number
US 2026/0172672 A1(US20260172672A1)
Applicant
Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.
Filed · Published
May 12, 2025 · Jun 18, 2026
Inventors
Yoshio Miyazaki
Status when we published
Waiting for an examiner
Document
6 claims
US classification
348/135
Examiner
DOBBS, KRISTIN SENSMEIER (Art Unit 2488)
Parent application
National Stage Entry of PCT/JP2022/042521 (filed Nov 16, 2022)(PCTJP2022042521)

What Sony's distance-triggered camera system actually does

Imagine a security camera that stays off until someone walks into the room — not just recording nothing, but genuinely powered down until it's needed. Sony's new patent applies that same logic to motion-tracking cameras.

The system works like this: a small wireless device is attached to or carried by whatever object is being tracked — say, a game controller or a player's body. Each camera in the setup has a paired antenna. That antenna constantly measures how far away the wireless device is. If you're close enough, the camera wakes up and starts capturing. If you wander out of range, it goes back to sleep.

The result is that cameras only do real work when there's actually something worth tracking in front of them. For a system with multiple cameras spread around a room — like a VR play space — that could add up to a meaningful reduction in power use.

How the antenna calculates distance to wake the camera

The patent describes a positioning system built around three main components: one or more cameras for tracking a moving object, antennas co-located with each camera, and a wireless communication apparatus carried by the object being tracked.

The core mechanism is distance-gating. The antenna and the wireless device exchange signals, and from that exchange, the system calculates the distance between them — similar in concept to how a phone estimates distance from a Bluetooth beacon using signal strength or time-of-flight measurements. If that calculated distance falls within a preset range, the camera is cleared to start capturing images. If the object moves outside that range, the camera restricts or halts image capture.

The arithmetic apparatus — essentially the compute unit doing the math — can live in the antenna hardware, in the wireless device itself, or in a separate processor. The patent is flexible on where the calculation happens.

  • Antenna: co-located with each camera, handles wireless ranging
  • Wireless device: carried by the tracked object (controller, person, etc.)
  • Arithmetic apparatus: calculates position from captured images and distance from radio signals
  • Camera: activates or sleeps based on the distance result

What this means for PlayStation motion tracking hardware

For PlayStation VR and similar motion-capture setups, power efficiency matters — both for standalone headsets running on batteries and for always-on camera arrays in larger spaces. A system with several tracking cameras all polling continuously burns more power than one where each camera only activates when a tracked device is actually in its zone.

This patent also points toward a tighter integration between radio-based ranging (think Ultra-Wideband or Bluetooth-style distance estimation) and optical tracking — two techniques that are usually treated as separate systems. Combining them so that wireless proximity acts as a gating signal for camera activation is a practical engineering approach that could show up in future PlayStation hardware or in Sony's broader location-tracking products.

Source: US 2026/0172672 A1 at the USPTO (PDF). Full patent text and figures are in the official publication.

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