Tech giants Google and Amazon have both been in the news for their interest in contactless sleep tracing using radar or infrared monitoring. Google has the stronger patent portfolio to support such products, thanks to its Soli chip and 2014 acquisition of Nest, while Amazon’s plans are more vague. As remote monitoring solutions become more popular, other companies may begin moving into this space — and positioning themselves well for licensing or partnership.
One company that is diversifying is ObjectVideo Labs, which focuses on using computer vision for video analytics. The company had a patent application publish in August 2021 for detecting the body temperature of a sleeping person using an infrared camera and determining sleep stages using the temperature profile. This technology is a departure from ObjectVideo Labs’ current services, as well as the rest of its patent portfolio, which is mostly directed to surveillance detection. However, certain spatial algorithms used for video analytics may be transferable to analyzing temperature data to determine sleep stage. Another company of interest is Dawnlight, which is a healthcare AI startup that had a patent application publish in June 2021 for contactless sleep monitoring using a combination of thermal, radar, and audio sensors. Both of these companies, which focus on software, have attractive technologies for smart home or consumer electronics manufacturers including Google, Amazon, and Apple that are looking to enhance their products and data collection. Is a partnership or an acquisition in store? With Patent Forecast®, you’ll be the first to know.
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