Sure, there are plenty of apps for both iPhone and Android phones that can help you track calorie intake. Personally, I have used MyFitnessPal several times in the past to track my food and see how many calories I was consuming. Apart from the awareness of the calories, it also helped me know if my diet was balanced enough (nutrients).
Hurdles with Calorie Counting Apps
- Remembering to enter data every time you eat something.
- The challenge of finding the right food entry that accurately represents your food.
- Guesstimating the amount of each type of food or ingredient.
Over time, the variation of food available in such tracking apps has improved dramatically. So picking the food is much simpler with local products being available in the apps directly. The ability to scan a QR code for a recipe is also a great feature that is supported more and more.
Number 3 is a common problem. Being aware of the amount of food you consume is difficult. It is easy to underestimate (or overestimate) the portion size.
But could it even be simpler? In the recent past, researchers came up with FitByte. That is a solution that makes use of a wearable solution (eyeglasses) to detect and monitor food intake. Audio and movement are used to detect food intake, while a camera is used to register the actual food. Initially, the user would still identify the food and drinks consumed, but with image analyses, even that could be automated.
Apple’s Patent Idea
This idea is now what Apple has been granted a new patent on. The iPhone has a microphone, gyroscopes, and a camera, so why not consider the idea of measuring food intake with a device again? The solution described in the patent could be using iPhone electronics, but also a headset could be used. The glasses would be an augmented reality headset (let’s call it Apple Glasses), containing the same sensors to capture audio, movement, and video.
The food intake solution will be triggered using the sensors to detect food intake (chewing, swallowing, moving something toward your mouth). The camera will take one or more pictures of the food and using AI, it will be analyzed to automatically determine portion size, food type, ingredients, and as a result, calories and nutrients. There you have it an automated calorie counter!
So, what’s the catch?
Well, it is a patent, so just an idea for now. Although, some R&D must have happened already! But we do not know if the solution will ever be completely developed and released. There are quite a few challenges in making this process of detecting food intake and analyzing the calories in the food reliable.
Another biggie is the privacy issue. Apple would probably want to couple this with Apple Health to register data. What users are willing to share is an important requirement to make this AR calorie counter work. To detect food intake, the microphone would need to be listening all the time. Maybe some users already have this to use Siri, but not everybody is willing to trust Apple with that.
The potential benefits can be huge though. Obesity is becoming a bigger problem worldwide, so any help tech can offer to fight this problem could be valuable. And for people wanting to lose weight sacrificing some privacy (maybe just for a limited period) could be worth considering.
Let’s see what the future brings!
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