Patent Application
20060025706
The present invention relates to a human body shape management device, and more particularly to a digital management device for human body measurements.
With the prosperous developments in the modern society, people's diets are also diversified. However, improper and surplus diets and lacking in exercise are always important factors resulting in fatness and illness. In assessing a person's health condition, different body measurements are usually an important basis for such assessment.
A cloth measuring tape or a caliper rule is conventionally used to take a person's body measurements, and the measurements so obtained are inaccurate and valueless in terms of managing body measurements.
In other conventional measuring techniques, big-scaled infrared and super-sonic measuring devices have also been used to take body measurements. However, such conventional measuring devices can be used to take only height and measures at some other specific areas, and therefore could not be used in all-round and effective management of a user's body measurements.
Moreover, in the conventional way of body management, the obtained body measurements are manually entered into a computer or recorded in a notebook. This is inconvenient to the user and largely reduces the effect of the body management.
Another problem with the conventional way of taking body measurements is it does not automatically store a large quantity of personal historical data of body measurements, nor does it compare the obtained measurements with reference body measurements or the user's ideal body measurements to effectively achieve the purpose of body management.
A primary object of the present invention is to provide a human body shape management device that combines a digital tape measuring mechanism and a numeric display function to effectively manage a user's body measurements.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a human body shape management device for human body measurements that can be carried along with a user to perform the body management at any time and any place, so that the user may accurately control his body conditions all the time.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a human body shape management device for human body measurements that is also capable of data management. In addition to the measuring function, the device of the present invention can also record the measured data and analyze such data on different time basis.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a human body shape management device for human body measurements that is also capable of storing reference and ideal body measurements at different areas. The user may accurately control his current body conditions from a curve of changing tendency of the body measurements.
A still further object of the present invention is to provide a human body shape management device for human body measurements that integrates a data communication port to download or upload the body measurement data in a data storage of the device to a personal computer or a notebook computer for further data analysis or body pattern simulation, and accordingly effective management of human body measurements.
The structure and the technical means adopted by the present invention to achieve the above and other objects can be best understood by referring to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments and the accompanying drawings, wherein
Please refer to
On the case 1, there are also provided a plurality of keys 31, 32, 33 for operating the human body shape management device 100. The device 100 includes a tape 4 that can be pulled out from one side of the case 1. Like a conventional tape measure, the tape 4 is made of a flexible material. One of the keys, for example key 32, can be preset to be a mode selecting key for selection of the body part to be measured, such as breast, waist or hip. By pressing the mode selecting key and conducting body measurement, measured data are stored to the corresponding reference body measurement data storage of the human body shape management device 100 and used for generating a historical curve showing the past and current data. Accordingly, the user is able to observe the fluctuation of his body measurements at any time.
The device 100 of the present invention is internally provided with a digital tape measuring mechanism 200 for measuring a person's height and accurate measurements at different areas in a digitalized manner.
A screw rod 55 is provided in the case 1 in the vicinity of the last gear 54 of the gear set 5 to mesh with the last gear 54. An end of the screw rod 55 is provided with at least one set of two spaced and staggered magnetic bodies 56, 57. At least one set of two sensing elements are provided in the vicinity of the two magnetic bodies 56, 57 for sensing the state of the magnetic bodies 56, 57. The sensing elements may be, for example, two magnetic reed switches 71, 72 electrically connected to a circuit board 8 via conductors.
The gears 51, 52, 53, and 54 possessing particular gear ratios are able to magnify the scale measured by the digital tape measuring mechanism 200. When the tape 4 is pulled out for measurement, the gears 51, 52, 53, and 54 rotate in series, and finally the gear 54 drives the screw rod 55 to turn in a magnified manner. Thereby, the precision of the measured data is enhanced. Supposing the gear ratio of the gears 51, 52, 53, and 54 to be 10, when the tape 4 is pulled out for 1 cm, the screw rod 55 is driven to rotate for a distance of 10 cm, and the magnetic reed switches 71, 72 of the digital tape measuring mechanism 200 are actuated to generate a signal representing 10 cm. Thereby, the precision of the digital tape measuring mechanism 200 is increased for ten times due to the magnification of the magnitude.
The gear set 5, the screw rod 55, the magnetic bodies 56, 57, and the magnetic reed switches 71, 72 together constitute the digital tape measuring mechanism 200 in the present invention. When a user pulls the tape 4 outward, all the gears 51, 52, 53, 54 of the gear set 5 are caused to rotate synchronously and bring the screw rod 55 to rotate. Whenever the magnetic bodies 56, 57 on one end of the screw rod 55 are rotated by one turn, the magnetic reed switches 71, 72 are actuated to generate a set of two measure signals s1, s2, which are sent to a control circuit 80 on the circuit board 8.
Before being sent to the microprocessor 81, the measure signal s1 generated by the magnetic reed switch 71 passes a de-bouncing circuit consisting of a resistance R1 and a capacitor C1 to remove any noise from the signal s1. Similarly, before being sent to the microprocessor 81, the measure signal s2 generated by the magnetic reed switch 72 passes a de-bouncing circuit consisting of a resistance R2 and a capacitor C2 to remove any noise from the signal s2.
Whenever the magnetic reed switches 71, 72 generate one set of two measure signals s1, s2, the measure signals s1, s2 are immediately sent to the microprocessor 81 in the control circuit 80. The measure signals s1, s2 generated by the magnetic reed switches 71, 72 have waveforms with phase difference, as shown in
With the signal sensing function of the magnetic reed switches 71, 72, it is possible to calculate and find whether the screw rod is rotating forward or reversely, and derive an accurate measured length or size. Then, the microprocessor 81 is able to calculate data about the user's body measurements, such as bust, waist, height, etc. based on the received measure signals s1, s2.
It is also possible for the microprocessor 81 to connect to a reference body measurement data storage 82, in which numerical values representing reference body measurements at different areas are stored, and to an ideal body measurement data storage 83, in which ideal values for the user's body measurements at different areas are stored. A body measurement data storage 84 is coupled with the microprocessor 81, which stores the measurements taken from the user by the digital tape measuring mechanism 200. After the digital tape measuring mechanism 200 takes the measurement from the user, the measurement is transmitted to and automatically stored in the body measurement data storage 84.
The microprocessor 81 may also be connected to at least one data communication port 85, so that the reference body measurement data stored in the reference body measurement data storage 82 and the ideal body measurement data stored in the ideal body measurement data storage 83 may be downloaded or uploaded to a personal computer or a notebook computer for further data analysis or body pattern simulation, and accordingly effective management of human body measurements.
The human body shape management device of the present invention can be used for measuring the user's height and accurate measurements at different areas. For example, the human body shape management device can be used to measure breast measurement as shown in
The present invention has been described with some preferred embodiments thereof and it is understood that many changes and modifications in the described embodiments can be carried out without departing from the scope and the spirit of the invention that is intended to be limited only by the appended claims.
