Amid consistent rumors that Apple will be bringing sleep tracking to the Apple Watch, the company appears poised to further utilize their Beddit acquisition by developing blankets and even mattresses to monitor vital signs.
William Gallagher for AppleInsider:
“Traditionally, monitoring a person’s sleep or vital signs has required expensive and bulky equipment,” begins “Vital Signs Monitoring System,” US Patent No 20200107785. It then points out that wearing such equipment makes the person uncomfortable, and so affects the very sleep patterns that it’s trying to monitor.
Apple’s proposed solution, then, is effectively to have bedding that tracks the sleep of anyone lying on or under it. This appears to be an extension of Beddit’s system, which saw a strip of material being placed under bedsheets and relaying data to an iPhone.
This extended version appears to suggest that instead of one short strip positioned under one part of a sleeping person’s body, at least a larger portion of the bed would become a sensor… The mat… could also act as an electric underblanket and directly alter temperature itself. Apple refers to this as “active heating or cooling,” and it would be more intelligent than a regular electric blanket, because it would adapt to more than one person.
MacDailyNews Take: While your Apple Watch charges nicely on your nightstand overnight as usual!
