A little more than a year after rumors first surfaced that Apple is working on a wearable augmented reality product, the company today won a patent for a device with a wraparound, translucent display.

Incorporating cameras, an accelerometer, and face-tracking technology, the potential AR device could work like the helmet in Iron Man's suit, continuously displaying images, videos, and other UI elements at any point along the chassis, according to AppleInsider.

The display itself would be AMOLED and flexible, similar to technology that Samsung, Lenovo, and others are working on for bendable smartphones and tablets. In addition to saving power by illuminating individual pixels rather than the entire display, flexible AMOLED screens can be heated to conform to a particular shape, the patent explains.

Even if the display is flattened, it will still return to the shape it held when it was heated. That means the display could function like an interchangeable glasses lens—inserted and removed from the AR device's cylindrical enclosure.

Users could interact with the device in a variety of ways. The patent mentions traditional input methods like a button, keypad, dial, or, touch screen, but also teases a "visual/image capture input interface." That suggests that the device would respond to what its cameras capture or the movements of a user's face.

Other companies are working on face tracking as well. Tokyo-based Fove last year started a Kickstarter campaign to make the world's first eye-tracking VR headset.

Patents don't always turn into products, but Apple appears to be inching along the road to an AR future. A report published by Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Gene Munster in March 2015 said that the tech giant had already assembled a small group, "likely trying to understand a wearable interface that design would ultimately make fashionable/socially acceptable."

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.