This application claims the priority of European Patent Application 11001945.2, filed on Mar. 9, 2011, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The present invention relates to a mobile phone, to a method for operating a mobile phone, and to a corresponding computer program element.
Miniaturization and the enhancement of wireless technologies have enabled mobile phones to act as portable electronic multi-functional devices rather than as bare telephones.
The problem to be solved by the present invention is to determine a health related parameter by means of a mobile phone.
This problem is solved by a mobile phone according to the features of claim 1. The mobile phone comprises a casing and a cavity in the casing. A humidity sensor is arranged for measuring a humidity in the cavity. A control unit is provided for analyzing a humidity signal supplied by the humidity sensor. An output unit is provided for presenting a result of the analysis.
The present mobile phone may act as a measuring and analyzing device with respect to the humidity of a user's skin. In such sense, the mobile phone may supply the user with information on his/her skin status such that the user may take cosmetic and/or health related measures subject to the results displayed.
It is noted that the arrangement of the cavity and the humidity sensor in the mobile phone is of a kind that a trans-epidermal water loss through the user's skin into the cavity may occur when an access to the cavity such as a window is covered by a body part of the user. The trans-epidermal water loss through the user's skin manifests in an evaporation of humidity into the cavity thereby increasing the humidity in the cavity. In the present embodiment, the cavity provides a space filled with air which accepts a trans-epidermal water loss in form of humidity filling such limited air volume. The cavity preferably is formed and arranged such that when the window is covered by the body part, the cavity is hermetically sealed resulting in the air volume being enriched in humidity which air may not leak into the environment neither via the window which is covered by the body part nor through cavity walls into an interior of the mobile phone which cavity walls preferably are leak-proof.
In a preferred embodiment, the humidity sensor delivers a humidity signal representing the relative humidity. The relative humidity is defined by the absolute humidity divided by the maximum humidity the air may accept. The humidity signal may be subject to treatment prior to being supplied to the control unit or prior to being analyzed in the control unit. Such treatment may include one or more of filtering, amplifying, compensating for undesired effects, dynamically compensating, building of any derivative, without limitation. Still, and irrespective of such treatment, the signal supplied to the control unit or the signal being analyzed there is considered as a humidity signal. In another embodiment, any such signal treatment may be considered as part of the analysis when executed in the control unit.
The humidity sensor preferably is a sensor of the kind that detects water molecules present in the air around the humidity sensor. In a preferred embodiment, the humidity sensor comprises a layer made from ceramics or a polymer. Such material may allow water molecules to enter the layer which results in a modified capacitance to be detected by electrodes used to determine the capacitance of the layer.
In a preferred embodiment, rather than analyzing the pure humidity levels in the corresponding humidity signal, the characteristic of the humidity signal over time is exploited i.e. its dynamics. In the analysis, it may be made use of such dynamics alone, or in combination with the humidity level. In a very preferred embodiment, the control unit is adapted for determining a change of the humidity signal by way of building a derivative of first or higher order of the humidity signal, or, for example, by way of determining a change of the humidity signal within a given time interval. In particular, an increase or decrease of the humidity signal may be classified. For such purpose, the increase or decrease may be compared to one or more thresholds. By suitably selecting the one or more thresholds, a meaningful classification as to the user's skin properties may be implemented. A start of the measurement and/or analysis may be triggered by the user pressing a key, a touch key or activating any other suitable input device. Preferably, a humidity level is measured in response to such trigger event and is recorded and used as a reference humidity value for one or more subsequently measured humidity values.
The window may be an opening solely assigned to the humidity sensor, or it may be an opening already existing in the electronic device, such as an opening for a microphone of a mobile phone. In such case, it may be beneficial if structural adaptations are implemented for building a cavity underneath the microphone opening or elsewhere for the subject purpose.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a method is provided for operating a mobile phone. In response to a trigger a humidity signal supplied by a humidity sensor arranged in a cavity of a casing of the mobile phone is analyzed. A result of the analysis is presented via an output unit of the mobile phone.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, a computer-readable medium is provided.
Other advantageous embodiments are listed in the dependent claims as well as in the description below.
The described embodiments similarly pertain to the device, the method and the computer program element. Synergetic effects may arise from different combinations of the embodiments although they might not be described in detail.
The embodiments defined above and further aspects, features and advantages of the present invention can also be derived from the examples of embodiments to be described hereinafter and are explained with reference to the drawings. In the drawings the figures illustrate in
a) illustrates a side cut of a cavity 151 arranged in the casing 15 underneath the window 152 along lines A-A in
In the scenario depicted in
In
Of course, the effect of separating the cavity 151 from the exterior EX and making the humidity in the cavity 151 be dominated by the trans-epidermal water loss may also hold for the user covering the window 152 with any other part of the body, such as, for example, with the cheek when holding the mobile phone 1 just as for calling. While the user covers the window 152 with a part of the body, the humidity in the cavity 151 first rises in response to such trans-epidermal water loss and then saturates.
A humidity signal RH(t) supplied by the humidity sensor 12 may reflect such change in humidity in the cavity 151. According to
Switching to
The trigger may be set by the user by pressing a key, a touch key, or by means of any other human-machine interface assigned. At the time of the trigger tx, the current humidity value RH(tx)=RHtx is measured and stored in a memory of the mobile phone 1 as reference humidity value RHtx. Such reference humidity value RHtx preferably represents the humidity of the environment of the mobile phone but not any human induced humidity.
In a first embodiment of the analysis, the subsequent dynamics of the humidity signal RH(t) is analyzed, for example, by means of determining the first or any higher order derivative of the humidity signal RH(t), or by means of determining a response time of the humidity signal RH(t).
In another embodiment of the analysis, it may be investigated, at which point in time ty relative to the trigger point in time tx a change in humidity ARH with respect to the reference humidity value RHtx reaches a given target change THRH, i.e. RH(ty)=>RHx+THRH. If, for example, a new humidity signal value RH is supplied every Δst seconds, for example, every 500 ms, at each such supply time t=tx+mΔst with m being an integer, it is determined if RH(tx+mAst)−RHx=>THRH. At a certain point in time ty, see in the diagram of
In a further embodiment, the analysis may encompass that a defined time interval Δt is started at the trigger point in time tx. In the present analysis it is of interest which humidity value is reached after the given time interval Δt, i.e. at point in time t=tx+Δt. In the present example in
Preferably, when the end of the time interval Δt is reached, i.e. at t=tx+Δt, an acoustic signal such as a beep may be issued in order to make the user aware that the measurement is terminated and he/she no longer needs to cover the window 152.
The humidity signal RH(t) in
A method similar to the ones previously described is illustrated in the flow chart of
In step 32, the current humidity value is determined and stored as a reference humidity value. In step 33 a derivative of the humidity signal is determined. Optionally, in step 34 additional information may be extracted from the humidity signal RH(t) if needed. In step 35, the derivative is compared to one or more thresholds for classifying the measuring result, for example, by means of assigning a humidity class to the measuring result. In step 36, such classification result is presented to an output unit of the mobile phone. By such step, the process returns back to step 31 for being prepared for a new measurement and analysis.
Subject to the way the humidity signal is analyzed, the step 35 may have different analysis content, and eventually, step 33 may prepare an analysis in a different way.
Referring back to
In addition, the cavity 151 may be separated into two volumes 1511 and 1512 by an air permeable membrane 153 as shown in
While there are shown and described presently preferred embodiments of the invention, it is to be distinctly understood that the invention is not limited thereto but may be otherwise variously embodied and practised within the scope of the following claims.
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