Wearable device command regulation

• US 10,039,077 B2
• Filed: 04/04/2017
• Issued: 07/31/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Yeung, Fai, Zhou, Fu, Chheda, Miril
• Primary Examiner(s): Mizrahi, Diane
• Application Number:
  US15/478,279
• Publication Number:
  US 20170208566A1
• Time in Patent Office: 483 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/385 Transceivers carried on the body, e.g. in helmets
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72412 using two-way short-range wireless interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0258 controlling an operation mode according to history or models of usage information, e.g. activity schedule or time of day
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/005 Transmission of information for alerting of incoming communication
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Systems and methods for regulating alerts in a wearable device are disclosed. The alerts may be generated from a mobile device or a wearable device communicatively coupled to the mobile device. The system may include an alert storage module that receives alerts of various types, and generate a plurality of alert heaps each including respective one or more alerts. The system may determine for an alert a respective cost value associated with issuing a notification of the alert. The alert heaps may be merged to produce a cost-biased leftist heap including prioritized alerts based on the cost values of the alerts. The system may generate a queue of notification commands based on the prioritized alerts, and transmit the commands to the wearable device.

Claims

1. A system for regulating alerts received in a mobile device, the system comprising:

an alert storage module to receive alerts and generate a plurality of alert heaps including an application alert heap, an operation system (OS) alert heap, and a sensor alert heap, the plurality of alert heaps each including respective one or more alerts;

a cost analyzer module to determine for an alert a respective cost value associated with issuing a notification of the alert;

an alert prioritizer module to prioritize alerts in the plurality of alert heaps at least based on the cost values of the alerts; and

a command queue module coupled to the alert prioritizer module to generate notification commands based on the prioritized alerts.

2. The system of claim 1, comprising the mobile device that includes one or more of the alert storage module, the cost analyzer module, the alert prioritizer module, or the command queue module, wherein:

the application alert heap includes alerts associated with application of the mobile device; and

the OS alert heap includes alerts generated by an operating system of the mobile device.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor alert heap includes a device battery status alert.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor alert heap includes a device temperature alert.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the cost analyzer module is to determine the respective cost value using a respective energy-indicated cost and a respective content-indicated cost;

wherein the respective energy-indicated cost indicates relative battery power consumption of issuing a notification of the corresponding alert; and

wherein the respective content-indicated cost indicates relative user preference to a content of the corresponding alert.

6. The system of claim 5, further comprising a memory to store a first lookup table of an association between the energy-indicated cost and types of notification commands, and a second lookup table of an association between the content-indicated cost and types of alerts,

wherein the cost analyzer module is to update the second lookup table based on a historical usage pattern of an alert.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the cost analyzer module is to determine the respective cost value using a weighted combination of the respective energy-indicated cost and the respective content-indicated cost.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the alert prioritizer module is to merge two or more of the plurality of alert heaps to generate a cost-biased leftist heap, the cost-biased leftist heap including a root node and a plurality of leaf nodes, the root node representing an alert with a lower cost value than any other alerts represented by the plurality of the leaf nodes.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the alert prioritizer module is to remove from the cost-biased leftist heap one or more leaf nodes associated with cost values greater than a threshold in response to a low battery alert or a critical device status alert.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the alert prioritizer module is to add to the cost-biased leftist heap one alert associated with multiple occurrences of the same event type.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the mobile device includes a communicator module to receive alerts from a wearable device through a communication link, and to transmit the notification commands to the wearable device through the communication link.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the command queue module is to transmit the notification commands to the wearable device based on a battery level of the mobile device.

13. A method for regulating alerts received in a mobile device, the method comprising:

receiving alerts from a mobile device;

generating a plurality of alert heaps including an application alert heap, an operation system alert heap, and a sensor alert heap, where each of the plurality of alert heaps includes respective one or more alerts;

determining, for the alerts in the plurality of alert heaps, respective cost values associated with issuing notifications of the alerts;

prioritizing the alerts in the plurality of alert heaps at least based on the cost values of the alerts; and

generating a queue of notification commands based on the prioritized alerts.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

establishing a communication link between the mobile device and a wearable device;

receiving one or more alerts from the wearable device through the communication link; and

transmitting the notification commands to the wearable device through the communication link based on a battery level of the mobile device.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein transmitting the notification commands to the wearable device includes:

withholding the transmission of the notification commands when the battery level of the mobile device falls below a threshold indicating low battery status; and

resuming the transmission of the notification commands when the battery level of the mobile device is above the threshold.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising storing the notification commands in a non-volatile memory when the battery level is below the threshold level.

17. At least one machine-readable storage medium, comprising a plurality of instructions that, responsive to being executed with processor circuitry of a computing device, cause the computing device to:

receive alerts from a mobile device;

generate a plurality of alert heaps including an application alert heap, an operation system alert heap, and a sensor alert heap, where each of the plurality of alert heaps includes respective one or more alerts;

determine, for the alerts in the plurality of alert heaps, respective cost values associated with issuing notifications of the alerts;

prioritize the alerts in the plurality of alert heaps at least based on the cost values of the alerts; and

generate a queue of notification commands based on the prioritized alerts.

18. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the operation that prioritizes the alerts includes an operation that merges two or more of the plurality of alert heaps to generate a cost-biased leftist heap.

19. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 17, further comprising operations that, responsive to being executed with the processor circuitry of the computing device, cause the computing device to:

establish a communication link between the mobile device and a wearable device;

receive one or more alerts from the wearable device through the communication link; and

transmit the notification commands to the wearable device through the communication link.

20. The machine-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein the notification commands include one or more of a device light notification command, a device haptic notification command, or a device audio notification command.