Apple Watch 6 could be made for you if you love yoga
Detecting your pose
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TheApple Watch 5is already a great health and fitness device, but it’s likely that the upcomingApple Watch 6will be even better, and one aspect that might be improved is yoga tracking.
That’s based on a patent thatApplewas recently granted, and which was spotted byPatently Apple. Titled ‘Pose and heart rate energy expenditure for yoga’, the patent details methods of more accurately tracking a user’s energy expenditure during yoga.
It would do this in a number of ways, using heart rate and motion data to help work out the type of pose you’re doing and therefore the likely energy you’re expending. Intriguingly, the patent also mentions taking a skin temperature reading to work out if you’re doing hot yoga, and then adjusting the measurements accordingly.
TheApple Watchcan already track yoga, but it sounds like the systems outlined in this patent would allow for more detailed and accurate tracking. Given that much of the tracking functionality depends on just motion and heart rate data, this could well land as a software update to existing Apple Watch models, perhaps as part ofwatchOS 7.
However, current models can’t read your skin temperature, so that aspect of the feature would likely be reserved for a future Apple Watch such as the Apple Watch 6 – and if Apple does add some form of thermometer to the Apple Watch 6 then it’s likely to be used beyond just yoga tracking.
That said, a patent being granted doesn’t guarantee that a feature will ever see the light of day, and with this patent being granted this close to the likely September launch of the Apple Watch 6 and watchOS 7, we might not actually see these features until the Apple Watch 7, if we see them all.
Still, it’s entirely possible that yoga tracking will get an upgrade on the Apple Watch sooner rather than later, so watch this space.
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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.
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