Tracking proximities of devices and/or objects

• US 10,524,090 B2
• Filed: 02/21/2019
• Issued: 12/31/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 11/03/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Roku, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Roku, Inc.
• Inventors: Hollinger, Joseph
• Primary Examiner(s): Hong, Dung
• Application Number:
  US16/281,901
• Publication Number:
  US 20190191273A1
• Time in Patent Office: 313 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0227 System arrangements with a plurality of child units
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0261 System arrangements wherein the object is to detect trespassing over a fixed physical boundary, e.g. the end of a garden
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0263 System arrangements wherein the object is to detect the direction in which child or item is located
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/24 Reminder alarms, e.g. anti-loss alarms
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/022 with dynamic range variability
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/025 using location based information parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/026 using orientation information, e.g. compass
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/027 using movement velocity, acceleration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/029 Location-based management or tracking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/12 Messaging; Mailboxes; Announcements
• 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 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 68/005 Transmission of information for alerting of incoming communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/15 Setup of multiple wireless link connections

Abstract

Disclosed herein are system, apparatus, article of manufacture, method, and/or computer program product embodiments for tracking proximities of devices and/or objects. In one embodiment, the system operates by determining whether a plurality of devices of a tethered segment are inside or outside a predefined area. The system also operates by determining that a first device of the plurality of devices is outside of the predefined area based at least partially on the determination of whether the plurality of devices are inside or outside the predefined area. The system further operates by transmitting at least one alert notification to at least one device based at least partially on the determination that the first device is outside the predefined area, wherein the alert notification identifies the first device outside the predefined area.

Claims

1. A mobile device, comprising:

at least one processor; and

a memory operatively coupled to the at least one processor, the at least one processor configured to;

determine that a sensory device is inside a predefined area surrounding the mobile device based at least on a determination of whether the sensory device is inside or outside the predefined area,

predict whether the sensory device will remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device based at least on a determination that the sensory device did not move at substantially same time or in substantially same direction as the mobile device, and

provide at least one feedback via the mobile device, wherein the at least one feedback indicates that the sensory device is predicted to not remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device.

2. The mobile device of claim 1, wherein to predict whether the sensory device will remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device, the at least one processor is further configured to:

determine whether the sensory device and the mobile device started moving within a tethered segment at substantially the same time and in substantially the same direction, and

determine that the sensory device did not start moving at substantially the same time or in substantially same direction as the mobile device.

3. The mobile device of claim 2, wherein

the predefined area is a geographical area surrounding the mobile device, and

the predefined area is determined based at least on physical proximity between the mobile device and the sensory device.

4. The mobile device of claim 3, wherein to determine the physical proximity, the at least one processor is further configured to:

determine that the sensory device is not within the physical proximity of the mobile device, when the sensory device is unable to communicate with the mobile device utilizing at least one peer-to-peer wireless communications protocol, and

determine that the sensory device is within the physical proximity of the mobile device, when the sensory device is able to communicate with the mobile device utilizing the at least one peer-to-peer wireless communications protocol.

5. The mobile device of claim 2, wherein to predict whether the sensory device will remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device, the at least one processor is further configured to:

determine whether the mobile device has moved for at least a minimum continuous movement period, and

determine whether the sensory device has not moved for at least a minimum non-movement period.

6. The mobile device of claim 5, wherein to predict whether the sensory device will remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device, the at least one processor is further configured to:

determine that the mobile device has moved for at least the minimum continuous movement period,

determine that the sensory device has not moved for at least the minimum non-movement period, wherein the determinations that the mobile device has moved for at least the minimum continuous movement period and the sensory device has not moved for at least the minimum non-movement period is the prediction that the sensory device will not remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device.

7. The mobile device of claim 2, wherein

the at least one feedback is a notification displayed on a display device of the mobile device, and

the notification identifies the sensory device and indicates that the sensory device is predicted to not remain within physical proximity of the mobile device.

8. A computer implemented method, comprising:

determining, by a mobile device, that a sensory device is inside a predefined area surrounding the mobile device;

predicting, by the mobile device, whether the sensory device will remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device based at least on a determination that the sensory device did not move at substantially same time or in substantially same direction as the mobile device;

transmitting, by the mobile device, at least one alert notification to the sensory device based at least on a prediction that the sensory device will not remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device.

9. The computer implemented method of claim 8, wherein the predefined area is determined based at least partially on physical proximity between the mobile device and the sensory device.

10. The computer implemented method of claim 9, wherein the predicting of whether the sensory device will remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device further comprises:

determining, by the mobile device, whether the sensory device and the mobile device started moving within a tethered segment at substantially same time and in substantially same direction, and

determining, by the mobile device, that the sensory device did not start moving at substantially the same time or in substantially same direction as the mobile device.

11. The computer implemented method of claim 10, wherein the predicting of whether the sensory device will remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device further comprises:

determining, by the mobile device, that the mobile device has been moving for at least a minimum continuous movement period based at least on a second time series device activity information;

determining, by the mobile device, that the sensory device has not been moving for at least a minimum continuous non-movement period based at least on the first time series device activity information, wherein the determining that the mobile device has been moving and the sensory device has not been moving is the prediction that the sensory device will not remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device.

12. The computer implemented method of claim 9, further comprising:

activating, by the mobile device, at least one feedback based at least on the prediction that the sensory device will not remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device, and the at least one feedback includes voice feedback configured to notify a user in a specific language with a specific volume that the sensory device is predicted to move outside the predefined area surrounding the mobile device.

13. The computer implemented method of claim 8, wherein

the sensory device is configured to provide visual feedback, auditory feedback, and/or haptic feedback, in response to the at least one alert notification.

14. The computer implemented method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving, by the mobile device, a first time series device activity information from the sensory device, wherein the first time series device activity information includes a device identifier identifying the sensory device, motion states identifying whether the sensory device is moving or not moving over a specific time period, and update time stamps identifying when the first time series device activity information is updated over the specific time period, and

updating, by the mobile device, a device datastore configured to store time series device activity information based on the first time series device activity information received from the sensory device.

15. A tangible computer-readable device having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by at least one computing device, causes the at least one computing device to perform operations comprising:

determining that a sensory device is inside a predefined area surrounding a mobile device based at least partially on a determination of whether the sensory device is inside or outside the predefined area;

predicting that the sensory device will not remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device based at least on a determination that the sensory device did not move at substantially same time or in substantially same direction as the mobile device; and

transmitting at least one alert notification to the sensory device based at least on the prediction that the sensory device will not remain within the predefined area.

16. The computer-readable device of claim 15, wherein the operations predicting that the sensory device will not remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device further comprise:

determining whether the sensory device and the mobile device started moving within a tethered segment at substantially the same time and in substantially the same direction, and

determining that the sensory device did not start moving at substantially the same time or in substantially the same direction as the mobile device.

17. The computer-readable device of claim 16, wherein

the operations of transmitting the at least one alert notification to the sensory device is further based at least on the prediction that the sensory device will not remain within the predefined area,

the predefined area is a geographical area surrounding the mobile device, and

the predefined area is determined based at least partially on physical proximity between the mobile device and the sensory device.

18. The computer-readable device of claim 17, wherein to determine the physical proximity, the operations further comprise:

determining that the sensory device is not within physical proximity of the mobile device, when the sensory device is unable to communicate with the mobile device utilizing at least one peer-to-peer wireless communications protocol, and

determining that the sensory device is within the physical proximity of the mobile device, when the sensory device is able to communicate with the mobile device utilizing the at least one peer-to-peer wireless communications protocol.

19. The computer-readable device of claim 18, wherein

the sensory device is configured to provide visual feedback, auditory feedback, and/or haptic feedback, in response to the at least one alert notification.

20. The computer-readable device of claim 15, wherein the operations further comprise:

activating at least one feedback based at least on the prediction that the sensory device will not remain within the predefined area surrounding the mobile device, wherein the at least one feedback includes visual feedback configured to emit one or more patterns from one or more light emitting diodes (LEDs) mounted on a housing of the mobile device.