Nintendo is making a dock of some sort that can monitor how well you're sleeping and then project that information onto your ceiling.

Last autumn, Nintendo revealed it was side-stepping into the life tracking business. Rather than moving into the competitive market of wearables with a band, Nintendo said it was interested in a sensor that sits on the bed-side and watches you sleep. The gadget will watch your nightly movements, breathing, and heart rate, and then upload that data to the cloud for analysis.

Nintendo said it planned to develop the technology with US health company ResMed, which currently makes equipment for diagnosis and treatment of sleepdisorders. We've been interested in how this device will look and work, and a set of recently-discovered patents from Nintendo might finally shed some light on the matter.

The patents, which were spotted by NeoGAF, date back to last year, when Nintendo first revealed details of its quality-of-life project to its investors, and they reportedly offer clues as to how you'll use the upcoming wireless sleep monitor. From the patent designs, it looks like device is some sort of charging dock with a set of speakers in the front and a project in the rear.

The project displays your sleep data on the ceiling. The device basically works like this: it has an information processing system that grabs sensor data in order to assess a user's emotions. It cab grab sound data from a microphone or image data from a camera, and then the processing system will determine how you're doing based on that information.

Sensors can also remotely detect pulse rate and temperature, as well as humidity through a camera, microphone, and other inputs. You can even hook up peripherials, such as a Wii Balance Board, to measure weight. It looks like the device, which is described as a portable terminal, also docks a device at night, but it's unclear if that device is from Nintendo or elsewhere.

Data is then uploaded to Nintendo servers, and after the cloud anaylses that data, the projector kicks on and shines a sleep score onto your ceiling. Awesome, right? This technology is thought to launch sometime next year.