The Apple Watch 5 is already a great health and fitness device, but it’s likely that the upcoming Apple Watch 6 will be even better, and one aspect that might be improved is yoga tracking.
That’s based on a patent that Apple was recently granted, and which was spotted by Patently 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.
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The Apple Watch can 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 of watchOS 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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