Generating suggestions for scenes and triggers by resident device

• US 10,469,281 B2
• Filed: 09/24/2016
• Issued: 11/05/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 09/24/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: McLaughlin, Kevin P., Bucak, Serhat S., Saxena, Sumit, Nadathur, Anush
• Primary Examiner(s): Shechtman, Sean
• Application Number:
  US15/275,343
• Publication Number:
  US 20180091326A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,137 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2807 Exchanging configuration information on appliance services in a home automation network arrangements for maintenance or administration involving network analysis for automatically determining the actual topology of a network H04L41/12; hardware or software tools for network management using graphical user interfaces H04L41/22; address allocation H04L61/50
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/282 based on user interaction within the home receiver circuitry for displaying additional information being controlled by a remote control apparatus H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4625 Single bridge functionality, e.g. connection of two networks over a single bridge
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/4633 Interconnection of networks using encapsulation techniques, e.g. tunneling
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0813 characterised by the conditions triggering a change of settings
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34

Abstract

In some implementations, a resident device can automatically generate scene suggestions and/or trigger suggestions based on historical data aggregated from multiple user devices. For example, a resident device can be a user device that is (e.g., mostly) kept in the home environment. Therefore, the resident device is able to collect accessory state and/or context data when another user device may not be connected to the accessories in the home environment. Moreover, the resident device can collect and/or aggregate accessory state data, context data, and user device state data from across multiple user devices. The resident device can automatically determine the accessories and/or corresponding accessory states for a scene and/or scene triggers based on historical patterns of use represented in the aggregated historical accessory state data. The user device can present suggest scenes and/or triggers to the user of the user device.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

identifying, by a resident computing device, a plurality of different user devices in direct communication with a plurality of accessory devices;

receiving, by the resident computing device, accessory event data that indicates accessory state changes occurring at the plurality of accessory devices, where the accessory event data identifies the plurality of different user devices that caused the accessory state changes at the plurality of accessory devices via the direct communication;

receiving, by the resident computing device, context data from the plurality of different user devices, the context data corresponding to accessory state changes;

based at least in part on the accessory event data, identifying, by the resident computing device, a pattern of accessory state changes for a group of accessories of the plurality of accessory devices that are temporally related;

generating, by the resident computing device, a scene based at least in part on the pattern of accessory state changes, where the scene includes the group of accessories and respective accessory states determined based at least in part on the pattern of accessory state changes and where invocation of the scene causes each accessory in the group of accessories to transition to the determined respective accessory states;

determining, by the resident computing device, a trigger for the scene based at least in part on the context data that corresponds to the accessory state changes;

generating, by the resident computing device, a scene trigger suggestion user interface element that identifies the determined trigger for the scene;

causing, by the resident computing device, the scene trigger suggestion user interface element to be presented adjacent to a suggested scene user interface element on a first user interface of a user device of the plurality of different user devices; and

upon detection of selection of the scene trigger suggestion user interface element at the first user interface of the user device, causing, by the resident computing device, presentation of one or more options for editing the determined trigger for the scene in a second user interface.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that a first accessory changed state at a first time;

determining that a second accessory changed state at a second time;

determining that the first time is within a threshold period of time of the second time; and

grouping the first accessory and the second accessory into the group of accessories.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the pattern of accessory state changes includes:

determining that each accessory in the group of accessories changed to respective first states within a threshold period of time at a first time; and

determining that each accessory in the group of accessories change to the respective first states within a threshold period of time at a second time.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the pattern of accessory state changes includes:

determining that each accessory in the group of accessories changed to respective first states within a threshold period of time of a first event at a first time; and

determining that each accessory in the group of accessories change to the respective first states within a threshold period of time of a second event at a second time, where the first event and the second event correspond to a particular type of event.

5. A method, comprising:

identifying, by a resident computing device, a plurality of different user devices in direct communication with a plurality of accessory devices;

receiving, by the resident computing device, accessory event data that indicates accessory state changes occurring at the plurality of accessory devices, where the accessory event data identifies the plurality of different user devices that caused the accessory state changes at the plurality of accessory devices via the direct communication;

receiving, by the resident computing device, context data from the plurality of different user devices, the context data corresponding to accessory state changes;

based at least in part on the accessory event data, identifying, by the resident computing device, a pattern of accessory state changes for a group of accessories of the plurality of accessory devices that are temporally related;

generating, by the resident computing device, a scene based at least in part on the pattern of accessory state changes, where the scene includes the group of accessories and respective accessory states determined based at least in part on the pattern of accessory state changes and where invocation of the scene causes each accessory in the group of accessories to transition to the determined respective accessory states;

determining, by the resident computing device, a trigger event for the scene based at least in part on the context data that corresponds to the accessory state changes, where the trigger event is an event that automatically causes invocation of the scene;

causing, by the resident computing device, a scene trigger suggestion user interface element that identifies the determined trigger event for the scene to be presented adjacent to a suggested scene user interface element on a first user interface of a user device of the plurality of different user devices; and

upon detection of selection of the scene trigger suggestion user interface element at the first user interface of the user device, causing, by the resident computing device, presentation of one or more options for editing the determined trigger for the scene in a second user interface.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

detecting a pattern of events in the event data that indicates the pattern of accessory state changes are correlated to the trigger event.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the trigger event occurs after the pattern of accessory state changes.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising:

determining a first number of times that the trigger event occurs in the event data;

determining a second number of times that the trigger event occurs in conjunction with the pattern of accessory state changes;

calculating a ratio of the second number over the first number; and

presenting the trigger suggestion when the ratio is greater than a threshold value.

9. The method of claim 5, wherein receiving accessory event data includes receiving accessory event data from a first accessory and a first user device.

10. The method of claim 5, further comprising generating the trigger suggestion based on accessory state changes caused by multiple user devices.

11. A system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

a non-transitory computer readable medium including one or more sequences of instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause;

identifying, by a resident computing device, a plurality of different user devices in direct communication with a plurality of accessory devices;

receiving, by the resident computing device, accessory event data that indicates accessory state changes occurring at the plurality of accessory devices, where the accessory event data identifies the plurality of different user devices that caused the accessory state changes at the plurality of accessory devices via the direct communication;

receiving, by the resident computing device, context data from the plurality of different user devices, the context data corresponding to accessory state changes;

based at least in part on the accessory event data, identifying, by the resident computing device, a pattern of accessory state changes for a group of accessories of the plurality of accessory devices that are temporally related;

generating, by the resident computing device, a scene based at least in part on the pattern of accessory state changes, where the scene includes the group of accessories and respective accessory states determined based at least in part on the pattern of accessory state changes and where invocation of the scene causes each accessory in the group of accessories to transition to the determined respective accessory states;

determining, by the resident computing device, a trigger for the scene based at least in part on the context data that corresponds to the accessory state changes;

generating, by the resident computing device, a scene trigger suggestion user interface element that identifies the determined trigger for the scene;

causing, by the resident computing device, the scene trigger suggestion user interface element to be presented adjacent to a suggested scene user interface element on a first user interface of a user device of the plurality of different user devices; and

upon detection of selection of the scene trigger suggestion user interface element at the first user interface of the user device, causing, by the resident computing device, presentation of one or more options for editing the determined trigger for the scene in a second user interface.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions cause:

determining that a first accessory changed state at a first time;

determining that a second accessory changed state at a second time;

determining that the first time is within a threshold period of time of the second time; and

grouping the first accessory and the second accessory into the group of accessories.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions that cause determining the pattern of accessory state changes include instructions that cause:

determining that each accessory in the group of accessories changed to respective first states within a threshold period of time at a first time; and

determining that each accessory in the group of accessories change to the respective first states within a threshold period of time at a second time.

14. The system of claim 11, wherein the instructions that cause determining the pattern of accessory state changes include instructions that cause:

determining that each accessory in the group of accessories changed to respective first states within a threshold period of time of a first event at a first time; and

determining that each accessory in the group of accessories change to the respective first states within a threshold period of time of a second event at a second time, where the first event and the second event correspond to a particular type of event.

15. A system, comprising:

one or more processors; and

a non-transitory computer readable medium including one or more sequences of instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause;

identifying, by a resident computing device, a plurality of different user devices in direct communication with a plurality of accessory devices;

receiving, by the resident computing device, accessory event data that indicates accessory state changes occurring at the plurality of accessory devices, where the accessory event data identifies the plurality of different user devices that caused the accessory state changes at the plurality of accessory devices via the direct communication;

receiving, by the resident computing device, context data from the plurality of different user devices, the context data corresponding to accessory state changes;

based at least in part on the accessory event data, identifying, by the resident computing device, a pattern of accessory state changes for a group of accessories of the plurality of accessory devices that are temporally related;

generating, by the resident computing device, a scene based at least in part on the pattern of accessory state changes, where the scene includes the group of accessories and respective accessory states determined based at least in part on the pattern of accessory state changes and where invocation of the scene causes each accessory in the group of accessories to transition to the determined respective accessory states;

determining, by the resident computing device, a trigger event for the scene based at least in part on the context data that corresponds to the accessory state changes, where the trigger event is an event that automatically causes invocation of the scene;

causing, by the resident computing device, a scene trigger suggestion user interface element that identifies the determined trigger event for the scene to be presented adjacent to a suggested scene user interface element on a first user interface of a user device of the plurality of different user devices; and

upon detection of selection of the scene trigger suggestion user interface element at the first user interface of the user device, causing, by the resident computing device, presentation of one or more options for editing the determined trigger for the scene in a second user interface.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the instructions cause:

detecting a pattern of events in the event data that indicates the pattern of accessory state changes are correlated to the trigger event.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the trigger event occurs after the pattern of accessory state changes.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the instructions cause:

determining a first number of times that the trigger event occurs in the event data;

determining a second number of times that the trigger event occurs in conjunction with the pattern of accessory state changes;

calculating a ratio of the second number over the first number; and

presenting the trigger suggestion when the ratio is greater than a threshold value.

19. The system of claim 15, wherein receiving accessory event data includes receiving accessory event data from a first accessory and a first user device.

20. The system of claim 15, wherein the instructions cause generating the trigger suggestion based on accessory state changes caused by multiple user devices.