Apple’s drive to make everything haptic continues, this time with designs for a haptic bed model. After the news that Apple might be making haptic socks, now it turns out that the apple company might be interested in producing a kind of haptic mattress with the ability to monitor and help control your sleep patterns.
This new product was revealed following a patent published last Thursday, which details a “pneumatic haptic device” that would be located on the top of the mattress on the bed. The haptic mattress images show different cells that can be inflated or deflated with fluids (either gas or liquid) to produce impulses that the user might feel.
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This patent is just another example of Apple’s desire to dominate the dream world, considering the acquisition of Beddit in 2017 and the incorporation of sleep tracking into Apple watches last year. However, as with all patents, we must remember that this haptic mattress may never be more than that: a dream.
Why would you want a haptic mattress?
Unlike most other haptic peripherals we’ve seen, we can’t think of many ways this Apple mattress device can be linked to our virtual reality system, so we doubt that the Apple VR (virtual reality headset ) and Apple Glass come with a specific integration.
However, we envision that the haptic bed would be used primarily for sleep tracking. Combined with other sensors, the haptic mattress could detect in which positions you snore loudest and thus gently push you into quieter positions.
If you’re someone who hates hearing your alarm in the morning, the haptic bed might quietly wake you up and might make it a bit more difficult for you to fall back to sleep. As well as, on the contrary, it could also provide you with a relaxing massage to help you fall asleep at night.
For now we will have to wait to see what this haptic mattress design becomes, if it ever becomes a reality. Most likely, Apple will need to pillow you before making a decision.
