Today the U.S. Patent Office published a patent application of Apple's that relates to evaluating a person's wellness state, and more particularly to providing wellness insights for a user of an Apple Pencil.

Obtaining Wellness Insights using an Apple Pencil

Apple's invention relates to a system including Apple Pencil with an inertial measurement unit (IMU) and force/touch/temperature sensors on its sides and/or tip, in some instances in conjunction with force/touch sensors on a tablet computing device or sensors on a watch, is disclosed that obtains measurements such as stylus grip pressure, tilt and touch location, stylus tip pressure, stylus motion, and user temperature.

In some instances, these measurements can be obtained through everyday use of the stylus, while in other instances, the user can be prompted to perform certain tasks (e.g., draw specific contours) to assist in data collection.

With these measurements, a user profile and baseline profile data can be established and tracked over time, which can include parameters such as tremor amplitude and grip strength. Deviations from baseline profile data can be computed, and when those deviations exceed a threshold, an alert or other wellness insights can be presented to the user.

Apple states that it should be noted that significant changes to a user's profile (FIG. 6) can be cause for optimism or concern. For example, significant changes to a child's profile, or significant changes to the profile of a person recovering from an illness, injury, or surgery, may be indicative of improvement rather than decline, and as such, the wellness tracking application can provide wellness insights that are encouraging.

In one specific example, a user profile of a child can be generated, maintained, updated and newly collected data such as grip strength data and/or handwriting recognition score or speed data can be periodically compared to baseline user profile data and analyzed by the wellness tracking application to identify any deltas or changes between the newly collected data and the baseline profile data that exceed predetermined thresholds.

If such data is identified, wellness insights of encouragement or congratulation related to the hand or writing development of the child can be provided to the child and/or a responsible adult (if contact information is available).

On the other hand, significant changes to the user profile of others, especially changes in a direction that is normally viewed as a concern, can cause the wellness tracking application to provide wellness insights in the form of alerts.

In some examples, a change to a user's nominal grip pressure that exceeds a predetermined threshold (e.g., a particular fixed threshold value, or a particular threshold percent change) can trigger the generation of a wellness insight to the user. In one example, a measured grip pressure below a particular level (e.g., below 80 gf, 60 gf, 40 gf, etc.) or a measured grip pressure greater than a predetermined percent reduction as compared to the baseline grip pressure (e.g., greater than 10% lower, 20% lower, 30% lower, etc.) can trigger the generation of a wellness insight to the user indicating hand weakness.

Note that the fixed threshold value or the threshold percent change in grip pressure can depend on the nominal baseline grip pressure. For example, the threshold percent change in grip pressure that triggers the generation of a wellness insight can be larger for a user with a nominal grip pressure of 300 gf than a user with a nominal grip pressure of 80 gf. In addition, the threshold percent change in grip pressure can depend on the form factor of the input device (e.g., the thickness of a stylus), so the determination of a threshold percent change in grip pressure sufficient to trigger the generation of a wellness insight may be a function of the form factor of the input device.

 Note that in some examples, a change to a user's nominal grip pressure that exceeds a threshold may trigger the generation of a wellness insight independent of other changes, while in other examples a change to a user's nominal grip pressure that exceeds the threshold may only trigger the generation of a wellness insight when one or more other values in the user's profile also exceed a threshold.

For full details, review Apple's patent application 20250044883.