by Dan Moren
Apple acquires Beddit sleep-tracking hardware
The Financial Times reports that Apple has bought a Finnish company called Beddit, which makes a sensor that tracks your sleep. It’s an interesting move, not least of all because the biggest rumor about watchOS 4 involves sleep-tracking technology. I have a hard time imagining that the company’s going to sell an Apple-branded sleep tracker, but it’s certainly not impossible. Seems more likely that this is a talent acquisition, though there might be other assets for Apple to gain.
For example, the FT notes that when Beddit updated its privacy policy to say it had been acquired, it noted that the data it collects would now fall under Apple’s privacy policy. While that could just be legal boilerplate, it might also suggest Apple has an interest in the sleep-tracking data Beddit has collected.
Either way, between this and word that Apple is heavily investigating a way to track glucose levels, it looks like we’ll continue to see a heavy push from the company into the health arena.