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Nintendo grabs a "Quality of Life" patent related to health information and sleep patterns

Life is a game
by rawmeatcowboy
14 May 2020
GN Version 5.0

Nintendo has said multiple times that they're not giving up on their 'Quality of Life' efforts, but they would need more time to piece the project together. It seems that the Big N is making progress, as they've filed for a new patent in Japan that's related to monitoring health information, including sleep patterns.

The patent shows a base that a user would plug a mobile device into, which would let it charge, and also exchange information. While using a mobile phone to plug into this base seems like an obvious approach, we can't say with 100% certainty that that's what's going on here.

The base device can detect biological information such as respiration and pulse, in addition to the user’s body movement. The base device also includes a projector that projects an image on a wall surface/ceiling, which could be used to help the user fall asleep, wake them up, or display information. Finally, the base includes a camera, speaker, and a control unit.

There is mention that the base might also feature an environmental sensor, a display, an omni-directional speaker, a light source, and / or an odor generating device.

The goal of the device is to track the user's fatigue level and energy level, which all ties into sleep information as well. The information collected can be transmitted to a server where data is stored for future use with the product.

The product itself would have some sort of story that the user could participate in based on the results of their health information. The data collected would determine how much progress in the story is made, and the story would also motivate the user to enact a healthier living style to do better and make more progress. Much of the game would be played while the user was awake, and there's also a mini-game button (Alarm Game) that could be a puzzle, quiz, or something else.

The mobile device would be able to track activity of the user, including how long they're awake, how far they traveled in a day, the time it took, and even the method of travel used. This same device can also use "emotion information" that is calculated based on images captured by the camera and microphone. Facial expressions and tone of voice could be used to calculate joy, sadness, and more.

There's a lot more to dig through in the patent itself. If you want to sift through everything included, you can do so here.

[Link]