Weight sensing closed loop system

• US 10,628,793 B2
• Filed: 05/07/2018
• Issued: 04/21/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 05/07/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Jay Schiller
• Original Assignee: Jay Schiller
• Inventors: Schiller, Jay
• Primary Examiner(s): Danneman, Paul
• Application Number:
  US15/973,083
• Publication Number:
  US 20180322449A1
• Time in Patent Office: 715 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• 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: H04W 4/027 using movement velocity, acceleration information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/38 for collecting sensor information
• 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

Abstract

A product container includes sensors and logic that detects a product'"'"'s weight and communicates the weight to a user'"'"'s device. An indication may be provided that the product weight has fallen below a set threshold value for reordering, and the user may be prompted to reorder the product. The user may electronically reorder the product or a similar product from their device using one or more software applications.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a container enclosing a product;

a sensor arrangement attached to the container, the sensor arrangement comprising at least a weight sensor and a motion sensor;

the container comprising wireless communication logic;

the container further comprising logic to;

read an output of the motion sensor to determine when the container is in motion; and

triggering, upon detecting that the container is no longer in motion after being in motion, reading of the weight sensor for a weight reading and communication of a data packet using the wireless communication logic, the data packet comprising at least the weight reading and a product identifier;

application logic to receive the data packet on a user device; and

the application logic comprising logic to selectively display an operable control on the user device on condition that a weight of the product as determined from the weight reading is below a threshold level and that the display of the operable control is not suppressed by a prior user response to a prior weight reading for the product.

2. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

the application logic comprising logic to interact with server logic to obtain descriptive information about the product.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the sensor arrangement further comprises:

a temperature sensor.

4. The system of claim 3:

the data packet further comprising a temperature reading from the temperature sensor; and

the application logic further comprising logic to apply the temperature reading to determine whether to selectively display the operable control.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the prior user response comprises a reorder of the product.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the prior user response comprises a reorder of a different product.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the prior user response comprises setting a next lower threshold level for the weight reading.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the threshold level comprises a level determined from analyzing a change rate of the weight of the product.