SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR PROVIDING NETWORK-BASED CONTENT TO AN IN-VEHICLE TELEMATICS SYSTEM

• US 20140164579A1
• Filed: 09/17/2011
• Published: 06/12/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 07/14/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Johnson Controls Tyco IP Holdings LLP (Johnson Controls International plc)
• Original Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company (Johnson Controls International plc)
• Inventors: Douthitt, Brian L., Zeinstra, Mark L., Dembinski, David T., Tenchov, Kaloyan
• Granted Patent: US 10,284,652 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/219
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/025 for remote control or remote monitoring of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/1097 for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS]
• 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: H04M 3/42136 Administration or customisation of services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/44 for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/60 Subscription-based services using application servers or record carriers, e.g. SIM application toolkits

Abstract

A method for providing network-based content to an in-vehicle telematics system is shown and described. The method includes include establishing a communications link between communications electronics of the vehicle telematics system and a remote content management server in communication with a plurality of remote content providers. The method further includes using the communications link to communicate with the remote content management server using an application programming interface. The processing electronics receives content from the plurality of remote content providers via the application programming interface. The communication between the remote content management server and at least one of the plurality of remote content providers is conducted according to a protocol for which the vehicle telematics system does not have an interface.

Claims

1. A vehicle telematics system for operation with a remote content management server in communication with a plurality of remote content providers, comprising:

communications electronics for establishing a communications link with the remote content management server; and

processing electronics for using the communications link to communicate with the remote content management server using an application programming interface;

wherein the processing electronics receives content from the plurality of remote content providers via the application programming interface.

2. The vehicle telematics system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of remote content providers include application interfaces;

and wherein the processing electronics of the vehicle telematics system are not configured to communicate according to the application interfaces of the remote content providers.

3. The vehicle telematics system of claim 1, wherein the processing electronics are configured to communicate with new remote content providers using the application programming interface for communicating with the remote content management server.

4. The vehicle telematics system of claim 3, wherein the processing electronics are configured to receive metadata regarding the new remote content providers via the communications link, and

wherein the processing electronics add options for utilizing the new remote content providers to a human machine interface (HMI) provided to the user.

5. The vehicle telematics system of claim 1, wherein the communications electronics are configured to establish the communications link with the remote content management server using a direct wireless connection to an access point outside of the vehicle.

6. The vehicle telematics system of claim 1, wherein the communications electronics are configured to establish the communications link with the remote content management server using a connection to a mobile phone.

7. A computerized method for operation by a vehicle telematics system, comprising:

establishing a communications link between communications electronics of the vehicle telematics system and a remote content management server in communication with a plurality of remote content providers; and

using the communications link to communicate with the remote content management server using an application programming interface;

wherein the processing electronics receives content from the plurality of remote content providers via the application programming interface;

wherein the communication between the remote content management server and at least one of the plurality of remote content providers is conducted according to a protocol for which the vehicle telematics system does not have an interface.

8. A system, comprising:

a remote content management system for communicating with a plurality of remote content providers according to disparate protocols of the remote content providers; and

a vehicle telematics system having communications electronics and an application programming interface for communicating with the remote content management system;

wherein the vehicle telematics electronics are configured to receive content from the plurality of remote content providers via the application programming interface without having interfaces for communicating according to the disparate protocols of the remote content providers.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the remote content management system comprises:

a configuration server that receives configuration information from a client for a user, wherein the configuration server allows the user to select and deselect remote content providers for access at the vehicle, and wherein the configuration server allows the user to input account information for each of a plurality of remote content providers.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the configuration server is integrated with a server for the remote content management system.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein at least one of the vehicle telematics system and a portable electronic device include the client for providing the configuration information to the configuration server.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the system further comprises a portable electronic device and the portable electronic device comprises a connected services application configured to access the remote content providers via an application programming interface for communicating with the remote content management system.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the vehicle telematics system communicates with the remote content management system through the portable electronic device.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the portable electronic device is configured to allow the user to continue access to the same remote content providers available via the vehicle telematics system via the portable electronic device and its connected services application.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the portable electronic device is configured to receive data from the remote content management system and to reformat the data according to a different streaming protocol for reception by the vehicle telematics system.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the different streaming protocol comprises a Bluetooth A2DP protocol and the data received at the portable electronic device from the remote content management system is received according to a TCP/IP protocol.

17. The system of claim 13, wherein the portable electronic device passes data from the remote content management system to the vehicle telematics system without changing the data to a different type of communications protocol.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the data is passed from the remote content management system to the portable electronic device and from the portable electronic device to the vehicle telematics system according to a TCP/IP protocol.

19. The system of claim 8, wherein the vehicle telematics system is configured to allow a user to select from a mix of audio, video, or entertainment sources in the vehicle, wherein a first set of the sources comprises the remote content providers via the remote content management system and a second set of sources comprises sources not associated with the remote content management system.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the vehicle telematics system does not use the remote content management system or the API for communicating with the remote content management system in communications with the second set of sources, and wherein the vehicle telematics system comprises specialized APIs for communicating with each of the second set of sources.

21. A remote content management system for communicating information from a plurality of remote content providers to a vehicle telematics system, comprising:

processing electronics comprising a first set of programming interfaces for communicating with the plurality of remote content providers according to disparate protocols of the remote content providers; and

processing electronics comprising a second set of programming interfaces for communicating with the vehicle telematics system;

wherein the processing electronics are configured to provide for communications between the vehicle telematics system and the remote content providers using the first set of programming interfaces and the second set of programming interfaces.