What you need to know
- Apple has been granted a patent relating to smart gloves.
- The gloves ould be able to measure blood pressure and more.
- Apple continues to focus on health.
Apple has had 64 new patents granted with one of them relating to a smart fabric health glove that is capable of monitoring blood pressure as well as other vital statistics.
Patently Apple first spotted the new patent back in December and it was granted today under patent number 10,437,331.
The patent explains how a layer of fabric, shaped like a glove, could include sensors near the fingers which could then be used to measure statistics. Sensor readings would be taken when a finger is pressed against a surface, like a desk.
Apple's patent FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional side view of an illustrative portion of the glove such as a finger portion. As shown in FIG. 5, the glove finger (#38) may include fabric that has been woven, knit, braided and/or sewn to form a shape appropriate for receiving a user's finger. When the user presses glove finger in downwards towards a desk surface, a compressive force will be applied to the fabric and the force sensors between the finger and a surface will be able to take readings sent to an external Apple device.
Apple continues to focus on health benefits in new technology with Apple Watch just being the start. We've already seen patents relating to smart clothing and a pair of smart gloves would compliment things nicely.
As always, it's important to remember that Apple has a lot of patents and not all of them morph into products that go on sale. This patent doesn't necessarily mean we'll be buying Apple Gloves this time next year.
