Patent ID: 11941997
Assignee: PLAYBRUSH LIMITED
Field: Other consumer goods (Other fields)
Classification: CPC G  A | IPC A  G

Claim 18:
19. A method of providing an indication of brushing activity with a toothbrush, the method comprising the steps of:
using an accelerometer to produce acceleration data from motion of the toothbrush, wherein the accelerometer produces the acceleration data in three orthogonal directions;
extracting gravitational components in three orthogonal directions from the acceleration data by filtering the acceleration data to produce the gravitational components, wherein the gravitational components provide an indication of how the toothbrush is orientated;
calculating at least one angular coordinate from the gravitational components;
extracting linear acceleration components in three orthogonal directions from the acceleration data by filtering the acceleration data to produce the linear acceleration components;
averaging a magnitude of the linear acceleration components in the three orthogonal directions to produce an estimate of brushing dynamics, wherein the estimate of brushing dynamics is a scalar value that provides an indication of at least one of how strongly or how quickly a user is brushing teeth of the user;
projecting the gravitational components and the estimate of brushing dynamics into an n-dimensional space, where n≥2, wherein an angular coordinate of an n-dimensional vector in the n-dimensional space is the at least one angular coordinate calculated from the gravitational components of the acceleration data, and a radial coordinate of the n-dimensional vector in the n-dimensional space is the estimate of brushing dynamics;
performing a clustering process on a plurality of n-dimensional vectors formed by projecting subsequent gravitational components and estimates of brushing dynamics into the n-dimensional space to produce clustering results, the clustering results comprising a plurality of clusters each of which represents one brushing area;
determining a brushing area based on an assignment of subsequent gravitational components and estimates of brushing dynamics projected into the n-dimensional space to a particular cluster; and
providing feedback to the user based on the determination of the brushing area, thereby providing an indication of brushing activity.