Release Your Inner Snorlax with Nintendo’s New Patent
A lot of companies gamify health these days, using social media, movement rings, and weekly goals to promote healthier lifestyle choices. But when it comes to making sleep fun, who better to do that than Nintendo? The company received a…
Fitbit Enters the Snoring Market. Sorry Apple.
Developers noted in late May 2021 that Fitbit is planning on releasing a software update that will allow the wearables to track snoring. The features include noise detection and categorization to aid in the assessment of sleep. In rolling…
Kryo Expands Patent Portfolio
Half a year after merging with Ebb Therapeutics and raising $37M in funding, Kryo is further expanding its assets with five newly issued patents between April and May of 2021. The company is growing its portfolio by expanding into stress…
Samsung and Google Partner on Wearables, keep eye on Apple
Samsung and Google announced in May 2021 that they are partnering to develop one unified wearable software platform based on Google’s Wear OS and Samsung’s Tizen. The new OS will be used for Samsung’s future Galaxy smartwatches, as well as…
Purple Innovation is Boosting R&D. We Have Suggestions
Purple Innovation is the creator of the Purple mattress, as well as a number of other cushioned products. The company has a large number of patents for its mattress materials, which include gels and elastomers. This portfolio has…
Forget Smart Watches – Oura Has A Smart Ring AND $100M
Finnish wearable company Oura has announced in May 2021 a $100M Series C funding round led by the investment arm of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The support is unsurprising considering the companypartnered with the NBA, WNBA,…
StimScience Raises Seed Funding, Sows Patents Early
California-based startup StimScience announced in April of 2021 that it had raised $6M in seed financing and is developing a consumer brain stimulation device to improve sleep. When it comes to sleep monitoring, the field is dominated by…
Casper Finally Relying on IP After Disappointing IPO
E-commerce mattress company Casper Sleep has had its fair share of ups and downs in the past two years. The startup raised over $300M in funding and was valued at $1.1B before announcing its IPO in January of 2020. Shortly after going…
Softbank Sees Opportunity in Eight Sleep and its Patents
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group International is investing $100M in multiple Miami-based startups, and patents may be a factor in its decisions. The latest recipient of a portion of SoftBank's Opportunity Fund is Eight Sleep, which…
Apple Wakes Up in the Sleep Sector; Causes Insomnia for Competitors
In most markets Apple is considered the 900-lb gorilla. But in our Patent Forecast® Sleep Sector, Apple is nothing more than a sleeping gorilla. They have a major advantage in this industry, which is their Apple Watch. Maybe now they are…
Patent Forecast® Predicted Google’s Foray into Sleep Monitoring
The latest Nest Hub from Google includes remote sleep monitoring technology that was described in a patent filed almost a year before product release. We discussed that patent in January of 2021, when we noted that Google may be…
New Patent Suggests Microsoft Only Hit Snooze on Sleep Detection
Microsoft once had a short-lived series of wearables - the Band, and the Band 2 - that sold from 2014 to 2016. By early 2019, the company ended all support for the fitness trackers, essentially exiting the market. But patent data suggests…
Is Panasonic planning to enter the Consumer Sleep sector?
Japanese electronics manufacturer Panasonic has never been known for sleep tracking products. But the company has been steadily patenting in Consumer Sleep since 2015. While its earlier filings aligned with its product portfolio — lighting…
What’s Panasonic Planning?
Japanese electronics manufacturer Panasonic has never been known for sleep tracking products. But the company has been steadily patenting in Consumer Sleep since 2015. While its earlier filings aligned with its product portfolio — lighting…
Sleep Number Eyeing Temperature Control
What does Sleep Number have up its sleeve? The company recently reported a net sales increase of 9% in 2020 despite the pandemic's effects on consumer spending. It was then rated a "strong buy" by the Zacks ranking system based on future…
Who Will Bridge the Gap between VR and Sleep?
Virtual reality (VR) company Future World Studios has just had a patent application publish detailing a VR system for helping users sleep. The company specializes in using VR in medicine, offering solutions for clinicians as well as…
Future Looks Bryte with Patents
Smart mattress startup Bryte has just raised $24M in Series A funding led by ARCHina Capital. The company, which was founded in 2016, has developed a mattress that uses sensor data and artificial intelligence to adjust temperature,…
Speculation about Google’s Newest Device – What do the Patents Say?
In a previous insight, we pointed out that Google filed two sleep patents in 2020 after a year and a half of inactivity in the sector. The move was interesting given Google's acquisition of Fitbit, which is the largest assignee in Consumer…
Kryo Merges With Ebb, New Picture Emerges in Consumer Sleep
Consumer sleep companies Kryo and Ebb have merged under Kryo management and raised $37 million in new funding. The two companies both focus on regulating temperature for better sleep, with Kryo's ChiliSleep cooling bedding and Ebb's…
Fitbit Slows on Sensor Development. Can Samsung Catch Up?
Fitbit has always been a leader in consumer sleep technology. The company's large patent portfolio (149 published documents in the last five years) is what made it such an attractive target for Google, which is close to closing the $2.1B…
Samsung’s Patents May Take a Bite Out of Apple
Electronics giant Samsung is leaving a paper trail that gives a preview of what we may see in the company's newest wireless earbuds. An FCC filing at the end of November names the Galaxy Buds Pro and includes a schematic of the Bluetooth…
Is Google Fit Still Relevant?
Technology giant Google is known for many things, but wearable technology is not one of them. Still, Google's Wear OS (operating system), which integrates with the Google Fit app, is used by many smartwatch companies including Fossil and…
No Nightmares on Apple Street
In November 2020, the FDA approved an app from Nightware that claims to detect and stop nightmares using the Apple Watch®. The app senses a nightmare using the watch's accelerometer, gyroscope, and heart rate monitor, converting these…
Ginger Looks to Assess Sleep
MIT Media Lab spinout Ginger is a virtual behavioral health care and coaching service that has unsurprisingly seen a large amount of growth since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to growing its weekly utilization rates by…
A Whopping $100M More for Whoop
Boston-based wearables company Whoop just closed a Series E funding round of $100 million, bringing the start-up's total fundraising to more than $200 million and its valuation to $1.2 billion since its founding in 2012. The company offers…
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