System for monitoring physical activity

• US 10,335,636 B2
• Filed: 09/13/2013
• Issued: 07/02/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/13/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Polar Electro Oy
• Original Assignee: Polar Electro Oy
• Inventors: Holma, Veli-Matti, Koistinen, Taina, Jaaskelainen, Petri, Komulainen, Olli, Kampman, Ville, Ronnberg, Lotta, Repka, Mikko, Kinnunen, Hannu, Siekkinen, Petteri, Maatta, Tarja, Niva, Arto
• Primary Examiner(s): Yip, Jack
• Application Number:
  US14/398,261
• Publication Number:
  US 20160256741A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,118 Days
• Field of Search: 434247
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02 Detecting, measuring or recording pulse, heart rate, blood pressure or blood flow; Combined pulse/heart-rate/blood pressure determination; Evaluating a cardiovascular condition not otherwise provided for, e.g. using combinations of techniques provided for in this group with electrocardiography or electroauscultation; Heart catheters for measuring blood pressure
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02438 with portable devices, e.g. worn by the patient
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/103 Detecting, measuring or recording devices for testing the shape, pattern, colour, size or movement of the body or parts thereof, for diagnostic purposes A61B5/08 takes precedence; measuring aids for tailors A41H1/00; measuring instruments specially adapted for dentistry A61C19/04
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/11 Measuring movement of the entire body or parts thereof, e.g. head or hand tremor, mobility of a limb for measuring pulse A61B5/02 ;A61B5/1038 takes precedence; motion detection to correct for motion artifacts in physiological signals A61B5/721
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1118 Determining activity level
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4866 Evaluating metabolism A61B5/083 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/681 Wristwatch-type devices
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/742 using visual displays A61B5/339 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 24/0062 Monitoring athletic performances, e.g. for determining the work of a user on an exercise apparatus, the completed jogging or cycling distance
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 19/0038 Sports
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/30 relating to physical therapies or activities, e.g. physiotherapy, acupressure or exercising
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72412 using two-way short-range wireless interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/02 including a Bluetooth interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/12 including a sensor for measuring a physical value, e.g. temperature or motion telephones including GPS signal receivers H04M2250/10

Abstract

A system that monitors user activity includes a wrist device including a curved body and an electronic circuitry supported by the body. The electronic circuitry includes a first set of light emitting diodes arranged in a matrix form and forming a display unit, at least one motion sensor configured to measure physical motion caused by a user to the wrist device, and at least one processor configured to acquire motion measurement data from the at least one motion sensor, to process the motion measurement data into a motion activity metric, and to cause the display unit to display the motion activity metric. The at least one processor is further configured to acquire heart activity measurement data from a heart activity sensor, to process the heart activity measurement data into a heart activity metric, and to cause the display unit to display the heart activity metric.

Claims

1. A system that monitors user activity, the system comprising:

a wrist device comprising a curved body and an electronic circuitry supported by the body, the electronic circuitry comprising a first set of light emitting diodes arranged in a matrix form and forming a display unit, at least one motion sensor configured to measure physical motion caused by a user to the wrist device, a heart activity sensor based on optical heart activity sensing, and at least one processor configured to acquire motion measurement data from the at least one motion sensor, to process the motion measurement data into a motion activity metric, and to cause the display unit to display the motion activity metric, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to acquire heart activity measurement data from the heart activity sensor, to process the heart activity measurement data into a heart activity metric, and to cause the display unit to display the heart activity metric,

and wherein the at least one processor is further configured to estimate a sleep index, the sleep index characterizing a user'"'"'s sleep quality and sleep time by using an activity sensor comprising at least one of said heart activity sensor and said at least one motion sensor; and

wherein the processor of the wrist device is further configured to determine an energy expenditure target, to determine at least one training intensity as a momentary training intensity from at least one of the motion measurement data and the heart activity measurement data, to compute from the momentary training intensity and a difference between the energy expenditure target and the energy expenditure accumulation value, at least one time duration needed to exercise with the determined momentary training intensity to reach the energy expenditure target, and to cause the first set of light emitting diodes to display the determined at least one time duration in connection with an indicator of a corresponding training intensity.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the communication circuitry of the wrist device is configured to establish a wireless communication connection with an external heart activity sensor, and wherein the at least one processor of the wrist device is configured to acquire the heart activity measurement data from the heart activity sensor through the communication circuitry.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the external heart activity sensor is configured to transmit signal at predetermined signal strength, and the wrist device comprises a communication circuitry configured to measure signal strength of the external heart activity sensor, to compare the signal strength with a predetermined threshold, and to pair with the external heart activity sensor whose signal strength is above the predetermined threshold.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the wrist device comprises a Bluetooth communication circuitry.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor of the wrist device is configured to automatically change from a motion monitoring mode to a heart activity monitoring mode when the communication circuitry is connected to an external heart activity sensor.

6. The system of claim 1, the wrist device further comprising an internal heart activity sensor configured to measure heart activity of the user from a wrist, and wherein the at least one processor of the wrist device is configured to acquire the heart activity measurement data from the internal heart activity sensor.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the wrist device further comprises a second set of light emitting diodes forming a second display of the wrist device and wherein the processor is configured to cause the first set of light emitting diodes to display one of the motion activity metric and the heart activity metric and the second set of light emitting diodes to display the other of the processed heart activity measurement data and the activity metric.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor of the wrist device is further configured to map the motion measurement data and the heart activity measurement data to a common scale through an energy expenditure equivalent.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor of the wrist device is configured to determine the at least one training intensity from a reference training intensity stored beforehand in a memory of the wrist device.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the wrist device comprises a communication circuitry configured to provide the wrist device with wireless communication capability, the system further comprising a portable electronic device comprising a communication circuitry configured to establish a wireless communication connection with the communication circuitry of the wrist device, a display screen, and at least one processor configured to receive heart activity measurement data and motion measurement data from the wrist device through the communication circuitry, to process the heart activity measurement data and motion measurement data, and to cause the display screen to display the processed heart activity measurement data and motion measurement data.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the processor of the portable electronic device is configured to determine activity accumulation within a determined time interval and to cause the display screen to display a scale indicating the determined time interval and at least one indicator indicating the determined activity accumulation within the determined time interval.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the processor is configured to compute activity accumulation from the motion measurement data and from the heart activity measurement data and to cause the display screen to display an indicator indicating whether the displayed activity accumulation associated with said at least one indicator is based on the motion measurement data or the heart activity measurement data.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the scale is represented by an object such that when the time interval has expired, the object is visually complete, and when the time interval is still running, the object is visually incomplete.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the processor of the portable electronic device is further configured to classify the heart activity measurement data and/or motion measurement data into a plurality of activity classes, determine activity accumulation in each of the plurality of activity classes, and cause the display screen to display the activity accumulation in each of the plurality of activity classes within the determined time interval.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the activity sensor comprises the at least one motion sensor, and wherein the at least one processor is configured to determine the sleep time as a continuous time when motion measurement data received from the at least one motion sensor indicates user'"'"'s physical activity below a predefined sleep threshold.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to divide the sleep time to a number of time periods of a predefined length, and to estimate the sleep quality on the basis of a relative number of detected deep sleep time periods compared with the number of time periods.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the activity sensor comprises the at least one motion sensor, and wherein a time period is determined to be a deep sleep time period when motion measurement data received from the at least one motion sensor indicates user'"'"'s physical activity below a predefined deep sleep threshold.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one processor is configured to divide the sleep time to a number of time periods of a predefined length, use a deep sleep threshold to detect which one or more of the number of time periods are associated with restless sleep, and to estimate the sleep quality on the basis of a relative number of detected restless sleep time periods compared with the number of time periods.

19. A system that monitors user activity, the system comprising:

a wrist device comprising a curved body and an electronic circuitry supported by the body, the electronic circuitry comprising a first set of light emitting diodes arranged in a matrix form and forming a display unit, at least one motion sensor configured to measure physical motion caused by a user to the wrist device, a heart activity sensor based on optical heart activity sensing, and at least one processor configured to acquire motion measurement data from the at least one motion sensor, to process the motion measurement data into a motion activity metric, and to cause the display unit to display the motion activity metric, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to acquire heart activity measurement data from the heart activity sensor, to process the heart activity measurement data into a heart activity metric, and to cause the display unit to display the heart activity metric, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to estimate a sleep index, the sleep index characterizing a user'"'"'s sleep quality and sleep time by using an activity sensor comprising at least one of said heart activity sensor and said at least one motion sensor, wherein the at least one processor is configured to divide the sleep time to a number of time periods of a predefined length, the predefined length being a length of a deep sleep time period and use a deep sleep threshold to detect which one or more of the number of deep sleep time periods are associated with deep sleep to estimate the sleep quality on the basis of a number of detected deep sleep time periods relative to the number of time periods and display the sleep index as a percentage of the detected deep sleep time period relative to the number of time periods.

20. A system that monitors user activity, the system comprising:

a wrist device comprising a curved body and an electronic circuitry supported by the body, the electronic circuitry comprising a first set of light emitting diodes arranged in a matrix form and forming a display unit, at least one motion sensor configured to measure physical motion caused by a user to the wrist device, a heart activity sensor based on optical heart activity sensing, and at least one processor configured to acquire motion measurement data from the at least one motion sensor, to process the motion measurement data into a motion activity metric, and to cause the display unit to display the motion activity metric, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to acquire heart activity measurement data from the heart activity sensor, to process the heart activity measurement data into a heart activity metric, and to cause the display unit to display the heart activity metric, wherein the at least one processor is further configured to estimate a sleep index, the sleep index characterizing a user'"'"'s sleep quality and sleep time by using an activity sensor comprising at least one of said heart activity sensor and said at least one motion sensor, wherein the at least one processor is configured to divide the sleep time into a total number of time periods of a predefined length, the predefined length being a length of a deep sleep time period, use a deep sleep threshold to detect which one or more of the number of deep sleep time periods are associated with restless sleep, estimate the sleep quality on the basis of a number of detected restless sleep time periods relative to the total number of time periods and display the sleep index as a percentage of the detected restless sleep time period relative to the number of time periods.