Samsung Wins Patent for AI-Powered Wallpaper Feature Based on Time of Day, Weather

Samsung might be developing a new feature for its devices which can tweak the wallpaper based on the current weather information, according to a patent recently granted to the company. The purported feature is said to leverage generative artificial intelligence (AI) to modify the existing wallpaper and add an overlay over the user interface (UI), in line with the time of day and weather conditions — be it foggy, rainy, sunny or snowy. The patent suggests it may also push out alerts like ‘carry an umbrella', in case of a drastic change in weather.

Samsung's AI-Powered Weather Feature

A patent filed at the US Patent and Trademark Office and granted to Samsung Electronics on January 2 describes a method for obtaining several elements — an original image designated as a background screen, a pre-defined prompt based on the time of day and weather information, context information, and display area of a user interface (UI) object. It is then said to apply these elements by inputting them into a generative AI model to generate a modified image corresponding to the context information. The modified image and UI object are then displayed as a background screen, with the time of day and weather conditions appearing as an overlay (FIG 6A).

Time of Day and Weather Changes in the Modified Image
Photo Credit: US Patent and Trademark Office/Samsung

The generative AI model is said to identify the areas in the wallpaper where changes based on pre-defined prompts can be applied. As per the patent, it is trained on a dataset which is fined-tuned for a base model and the generative model.

Apart from modifications related to the time of day and weather, the feature is also claimed to display seasonal variations (FIG 17).

Feature's Ability to Display Seasonal Changes
Photo Credit: US Patent and Trademark Office/Samsung

The patent suggests it may leverage an instruction-based model to turn the original image into its modified variant. Further, the feature is said to have the capability of converting the image variation into video variation, using an image-to-video model. The user may be able to apply the modified image as the home screen or lock screen wallpaper.