Apple has now acquired a sleep tracking hardware and software company called Beddit. The news about the acquisition was first reported by CNBC and has also been confirmed by the company itself. Beddit has updated the privacy policy on its website; however, the terms of the acquisition are still not certain.
What does Beddit offer?
Confirming the acquisition, the company said in a post on its privacy policy page that user information “will be collected, used and disclosed in accordance with the Apple Privacy Policy.” Further, the company stated that any related data it collects, such as respiratory data and heart rate information, can be shared with Apple’s health app.
Beddit has retained a customer support contact on its website, suggesting that the customer experience will not change. This means that consumers will be able to access Beddit’s products and services support for the foreseeable future, notes CNBC. The previous page that linked to Beddit’s Apple Watch apps appears to have been taken down.
According to Beddit’s website, its most recent product, the Beddit 3, is a thin strip of sensors that goes across the user’s bed and analyzes sleep-related data like “sleep time and efficiency, heart rate, respiration, temperature, movement, snoring, room temperature, and room humidity.” The hardware maker sells the sensor strip for $150. The strip transfers slumber-related data to the iPad, iPhone or Apple Watch for analysis. The device is still up for sale on the Apple Store.
Beddit also has an app for its sleep tracking device. The app gives users important information like the number of hours they slept and breaks down sleeping data into categories like “snoring,” “awake” and “restless.” The company released its products in Apple stores in late 2015. The hardware company, which was founded in 2007, has received around $3.5 million in funding.
Why is Apple interested in sleep tracking?
The Finland-based company has made several popular products, but we cannot expect to see any Apple-branded product to come out any time soon. There are chances that Apple engineers are more interested in Beddit’s methods of measuring sleep quality instead of coming up with a new standalone product, notes TechCrunch.
With the Beddit acquisition, Apple may be exploring new use cases for its Apple Watch in the health and wellness market. Sleep tracking could be an intriguing potential health app for the watch. Last year Bloomberg reported that the iPhone maker planned to add sleep tracking to the watch. There are chances that the company will unveil sleep tracking in some form with watchOS4 coming later this year.
According to estimates by the CDC (a U.S.-based public health institute), about 50 million to 70 million U.S. adults have wakefulness or sleep disorders. Rival Fitbit also recently came up with sleep-tracking features for its wearables.
Apple could be exploring more activity tracking with an aim to convert its HealthKit software into a diagnosis tool. Gizmodo recently reported that the company could be testing skiing and snowboarding activity tracking.
On Tuesday, Apple shares closed up 0.62% at $153.96. Year to date, the stock is up almost 33%.
