Sleep Monitoring and Aiding Devices Insight from Patents

US9192326 illustrates a sleep monitoring system that can be embodied within a wearable device or in a mobile device. The system includes an accelerometer to monitor a user’s movements. The system determines when the user is falling asleep into a sleep session based on the user’s movements. The system also identifies the sleep session as a power nap or a longer sleep based on a current time of day, a time since a last longer sleep, and a location of the user. The system notifies the user to change the user’s location when the user falling asleep would have a negative effect on the user.

When the user falling asleep does not have a negative effect on the user, the system determines a time to wake up the user based on a combination of the current time of day, the time since a last longer sleep, the location of the user, user preferences, and measured information regarding the sleep session.

US20150182164 illustrates a sleep monitoring system that can be embodied within a wearable ring (e.g., on a digit of a hand and/or a toe of a foot). The system includes the biometric sensors comprise a heart rate sensor, a respiration sensor, a temperature sensor, a skin conductance sensor, a skin conductance response sensor, a galvanic skin response (GSR) sensor, an electromyography (EMG) sensor, an electrodermal activity sensor, and an electrodermal response sensor.

The biometric sensors generate biometric signals such as an arousal signal indicative of arousal in a sympathetic nervous system. The system analyzes the biometric signals to classify a user’s sleep state as several sleep types. The system notifies the user regarding the sleep state that is an indication of the negative health status (e.g., inflammation, fatigue, stress). The system provides a coaching that includes advising or offering suggestions to the user for changing behavior or to improve some aspect of the wellbeing of the user.

US20150351693 illustrates a sleep monitoring system that can be embodied within a bed or a mattress. The system includes pressure sensors that are spatially arranged in a predefined planar geometry. The system extracts the biophysical variables from the biophysical signals of a user resting on a bead or mattress that are obtained by the sensors. The person’s sleep state is inferred from the biophysical variables.

A good life quality is usually built up with the good sleep quality. Unfortunately, according to the research findings, about 11.7% of Americans (i.e. about 32 million people) suffer from the problem of sleeplessness. US20150217082 illustrates a sleep aiding system for assisting in easing hardship of falling asleep. The system monitors a bio-condition of the sleeper to collect bioinformation of the sleeper. The bioinformation includes a heartbeat, a body temperature, a blood pressure, a skin conductivity, and a respiration rate. The system determines a falling-asleep hardship index based on the received data to indicate hardship of falling asleep for a user. The system provides the sleep guidance in visual form audio form to adjust the environment for building an optimum sleep environment.

US20140316192 illustrates a virtual reality system for promoting sleep. The system includes a virtual reality device and a wearable or mobile sensor device. The sensor device communicates wirelessly with the virtual reality device (e.g., eye wear and headphones). The sensor device detects various different physiological signals and determines the physiological parameters. The sensor device determines a stage of the immersive virtual environment based on the values of the physiological parameters. The virtual reality device presents the stages of the immersive virtual environment that are designed to promote sleep by providing a different arrangement of sensory stimuli.

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