Apple Patents AirPods That Could Track Brain Activity

Apple's patent application for a next-generation AirPods Sensor System was published by the US Patent & Trademark Office. The application describes a system in which the housing and tips of AirPods would have active and reference electrodes that could measure biosignals and electrical activity of the user's brain. These biosignals may include electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG), electrooculography (EOG), and more.

The company wants to achieve reduced device mobility and decreased visibility of electrodes by measuring brain activity using electrodes placed in or around the outer ear. This task would typically require customized ear-EEG devices matching individual ears but they are expensive. Apple wants to patent AirPods that have more electrodes than necessary and dynamically select a subset of electrodes for measuring biosignals at any given time. The device would include multiple active and reference electrodes configured for measuring the user's biosignals.

The application notes that the device can take into account different factors such as user parameters, how the device is worn, and ambient conditions influencing electrode selection.

The patent mentioned the device would have a housing with a nonplanar surface, to which an electronic carrier is attached. The electronic carrier would have a set of electrodes positioned at various locations on the nonplanar surface. A sensor circuit and switching circuit are also included. The switching circuit enables the connection of different subsets of electrodes to the sensor circuit.

Would you like to test next-gen AirPods that could track your brain activity? How far do you think we are from such devices? 

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