EMAIL-BASED COMMAND INTERFACE FOR A TELEMATICS-EQUIPPED VEHICLE

• US 20070179800A1
• Filed: 12/29/2006
• Published: 08/02/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/31/2005
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: General Motors LLC (General Motors Company)
• Original Assignee: General Motors Corporation (General Motors Company)
• Inventors: Oesterling, Christopher
• Application Number:
  US11/618,284
• Publication Number:
  US 20070179800A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0488 using a touch-screen or digitiser, e.g. input of commands through traced gestures
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/107 Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0278 Product appraisal
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/085 using electronic data carriers
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 370/908 Local area network

Abstract

An email-based interface to a telematics-equipped vehicle which allows a subscriber to send an email command to the vehicle to obtain vehicle information by return email or to carry out a vehicle function. The email-based interface method uses a vehicle email notification system and method in which triggers are used to initiate the generation and transmission of email messages that provide diverse types of dynamic vehicle information to the owner or other authorized subscriber. The email notifications are triggered by different events, some of which are independent of the vehicle (e.g., a monthly trigger), and others of which occur at the vehicle, such as a mileage or low oil life trigger. Upon occurrence of a trigger, the notification system builds and sends to the subscriber an email message that contains the dynamic vehicle information and identifies any detected vehicle condition for which action is needed.

Claims

1. A method of providing vehicle information to an owner or other recipient in response to a received electronic message, comprising the steps of:

receiving an electronic message that uniquely identifies a particular vehicle;

obtaining vehicle data from the vehicle identified by the electronic message;

constructing a notification message that includes at least some of the vehicle data; and

sending the notification message to the recipient via an electronic messaging system.

2. The method set forth in claim 1, wherein the electronic message is an email.

3. The method set forth in claim 2, wherein the receiving step further comprises receiving an email containing the vehicle'"'"'s VIN.

4. The method set forth in claim 3, wherein the email is addressed using an email address that contains the VIN.

5. The method set forth in claim 4, wherein the email address is of the form [e-mail] where VIN is the vehicle identification number and domain.tld is the domain of the email handling facility.

6. The method set forth in claim 1, wherein the receiving step further comprises receiving an electronic message containing a vehicle command.

7. The method set forth in claim 6, wherein the vehicle command specifies particular vehicle data and wherein the obtaining step further comprises obtaining the particular vehicle data for use in the notification message.

8. The method set forth in claim 6, wherein the vehicle command specifies a vehicle function and wherein the method further comprises the steps of establishing a communication session with the vehicle, transmitting the vehicle command to the vehicle over the communication session, and thereafter carrying out the vehicle function at the vehicle.

9. The method of set forth in claim 1, wherein the step of obtaining the vehicle data further comprises establishing a trigger in the vehicle and, upon occurrence of the trigger, obtaining the vehicle data and transmitting the data from the vehicle to a central data system.

10. The method of set forth in claim 1, wherein the notification message comprises an email.

11. A method of providing an electronic message-based interface to a telematics-equipped vehicle, comprising the steps of:

receiving an electronic message that uniquely identifies a particular vehicle and that contains a vehicle command;

establishing a wireless communication session with the vehicle identified by the electronic message;

transmitting the vehicle command to the vehicle over the wireless communication session.

12. The method set forth in claim 11, wherein the electronic message is an email.

13. The method set forth in claim 12, wherein the receiving step further comprises receiving an email containing the vehicle'"'"'s VIN.

14. The method set forth in claim 13, wherein the email is addressed using an email address that contains the VIN.

15. The method set forth in claim 14, wherein the email address is of the form [e-mail] where VIN is the vehicle identification number and domain.tld is the domain of the email handling facility.

16. The method set forth in claim 12, wherein the email contains a subject field and wherein the vehicle command is contained in the subject field.

17. The method set forth in claim 11, wherein the vehicle command specifies particular vehicle data and wherein the method further comprises the steps of:

obtaining the particular vehicle data from the vehicle;

constructing a notification message that includes at least some of the particular vehicle data; and

sending the notification message to the recipient via an electronic messaging system.

18. The method set forth in claim 17, wherein the step of constructing a notification message further comprises generating an email message using a markup language.

19. The method set forth in claim 11, wherein the vehicle command specifies a vehicle function.

20. The method set forth in claim 19, wherein the vehicle function comprises one of the following functions:

resetting of the oil life, unlocking of one or more vehicle doors, vehicle engine startup.