Apple is working on how the AirPods detect motion and position, partly to assist with spatial audio, but also to measure body movement during Fitness+ workouts. Apple Fitness+ may be an extremely well-made service, but inevitably, it’s online. There isn’t really a coach watching and encouraging you, it just looks like there is.
So, Apple has only a few ways to know that you actually did what you said you were exercising. The Apple Watch is the main way because it monitors your heart rate during training, but you might just panic because you didn’t finish your workout.
So in the future, there may be more clues for Apple Fitness+ to interpret, data that can’t be blinded by your excess caffeine “Wireless Earbuds System with Gesture Detection,” a newly revealed Apple application, suggests determining details of your movement through AirPods.
Apple said in the patent application that the earbuds could have sensors to collect orientation information, such as accelerometer measurements of the user’s movement, and the host electronics could communicate wirelessly with the earbuds and could form part of an earbud system that evaluates the user’s head. Provide guidance and feedback to the user on the performance of an exercise program or other exercise program.
This has to be a fairly fine measurement, for example, it can record when an Apple Fitness+ trainer tells you to raise your right arm above your head. But Apple suggests that any deviation from the starting position, or any deviation from a fixed orientation to Earth, would help.
During operation, the earbuds can collect accelerometer data and can use a rotation matrix, and the data in the neutral frame of reference can be analyzed using a user head pose look-up table to categorize the measured user head position into the corresponding motion.
This patent application definitely has an applied side to spatial audio, where the audio changes precisely when the user turns their head or moves their body. However, Apple’s work on fitness isn’t done yet.
But Apple says it can provide users with feedback, such as audible feedback, based on an assessment of their regular performance of head movements, and can take other appropriate actions, such as issuing workout performance reports and alerts for no workouts.
So, in theory, an Apple Fitness+ trainer could give critical comments on a user’s performance, and the AirPods would play it as appropriate.