Vehicle Location-Based Home Automation Triggers

• US 20140309789A1
• Filed: 04/15/2014
• Published: 10/16/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 04/15/2013
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: AutoConnect Holdings LLC
• Original Assignee: Flextronics America LLC (Flextronics International Limited)
• Inventors: Ricci, Christopher P.
• Application Number:
  US14/252,934
• Publication Number:
  US 20140309789A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/276
• CPC Class Codes: B60Q 1/52 for indicating emergencies
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 25/00 Fittings or systems for preventing or indicating unauthorised use or theft of vehicles locks for vehicles E05B77/00-E05B85/00
• CPC Class Codes: B60R 25/1004 Alarm systems characterised by the type of sensor, e.g. current sensing means using door lock sensors B60R25/1001
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/26 specially adapted for navigation in a road network
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/25 Integrating or interfacing systems involving database management systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/583 using metadata automatically derived from the content
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/00 Security arrangements for protecting computers, components thereof, programs or data against unauthorised activity
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/31 User authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/32 using biometric data, e.g. fingerprints, iris scans or voiceprints
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/017 Gesture based interaction, e.g. based on a set of recognized hand gestures interaction based on gestures traced on a digitiser G06F3/04883
• 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 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/20 Administration of product repair or maintenance
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/308 using the Internet of Things
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/321 using wearable devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/012 Providing warranty services
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0265 Vehicular advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0633 : Lists, e.g. purchase orders, compilation or processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0639 : Item locations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0645 : Rental transactions; Leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 : Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/59 : inside of a vehicle, e.g. relating to seat occupancy, driver state or inner lighting conditions
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/15 : Biometric patterns based on physiological signals, e.g. heartbeat, blood flow
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/166 : using acquisition arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/168 : Feature extraction; Face representation
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 40/28 : Recognition of hand or arm movements, e.g. recognition of deaf sign language static hand signs G06V40/113
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/19647 : Systems specially adapted for intrusion detection in or around a vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/06 : indicating a condition of sleep, e.g. anti-dozing alarms
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/016 : Personal emergency signalling and security systems emergency non-personal manually actuated alarm activators G08B25/12
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 29/188 : Data fusion; cooperative systems, e.g. voting among different detectors
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096725 : where the received information generates an automatic action on the vehicle control
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096741 : where the source of the transmitted information selects which information to transmit to each vehicle
• CPC Class Codes: G08G 1/096775 : where the origin of the information is a central station
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/10 : in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46
• 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: H04N 21/41422 : located in transportation means, e.g. personal vehicle arrangements specially adapted for transportation systems in broadcast systems H04H20/62
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/181 : for receiving images from a plurality of remote sources
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/068 : using credential vaults, e.g. password manager applications or one time password [OTP] applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/088 : using filters or firewalls
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/68 : Gesture-dependent or behaviour-dependent
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/34 : Reselection control
• 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 4/21 : for social networking applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 : for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/60 : Subscription-based services using application servers or record carriers, e.g. SIM application toolkits
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/04 : based on user or terminal location or mobility data, e.g. moving direction, speed
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/005 : Moving wireless networks

Abstract

Methods and systems of a vehicle control system configuring features of a home automation system. The vehicle control system includes a home automation module that can receive information from the home automation system such as a presence of occupants in a home and a state of features of the home. The home automation module can send commands to activate, deactivate, and/or change settings of one or more features of the home automation system based on user profile information. The commands can be modified based on the information received from the home automation system.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by a microprocessor executable home automation module, an identity of at least one occupant of a vehicle;

accessing, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, an account of the at least one vehicle occupant, the account defining at least one home location for the identified vehicle occupant;

connecting, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, to a home automation system of one of the at least one home locations;

receiving, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, a state of features of the home automation system;

retrieving, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, from the account of the at least one identified vehicle occupant, arrival settings for features of the home automation system;

generating, microprocessor executable home automation module, commands to implement the arrival settings; and

sending, microprocessor executable home automation module, the commands to the home automation system.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the microprocessor executable home automation module sends a first set of commands to the home automation system at a first time and a second set of commands to the home automation system at a second time.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the microprocessor executable home automation module sends the first set of commands to the home automation system when the vehicle is a first distance from the home location, wherein the microprocessor executable home automation module sends the second set of commands when the vehicle is a second distance from the home location, and wherein the first distance is greater than the second distance.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first time and the second time are determined by one of the account of the at least one vehicle occupant and the microprocessor executable home automation module based at least in part on the state of features of the home automation system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the settings comprise at least one of activating, deactivating, and changing a setting of at least one of an interior light, an exterior light, a security system, an interior entertainment system, an exterior entertainment system, a thermostat, and a door lock of the home automation system.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one vehicle occupant comprises a first vehicle occupant and a second vehicle occupant, and further comprising:

determining, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, a conflict between at least one setting of the first vehicle occupant and at least one setting of the second vehicle occupant;

determining, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, a first priority of the first vehicle occupant and a second priority of the second vehicle occupant;

when the first priority is greater than the second priority, generating, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, commands to implement the at least one setting of the first vehicle occupant; and

when the second priority is greater than the first priority, generating, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, commands to implement the at least one setting of the second vehicle occupant.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein when the first vehicle occupant is identified as a driver, the first priority is greater than the second priority.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, a number of occupants in the home location from the home automation system;

determining, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, that the home location is occupied, wherein;

during the retrieving, the microprocessor executable home automation module retrieves alternate settings from the account of the at least one vehicle occupant; and

during the generating, the microprocessor executable home automation module generates commands to implement the alternate settings.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, one of an audio channel and a video channel presenting a media item to the at least one vehicle occupant; and

during the generating, generating commands to tune an entertainment system of the home automation system to one of the audio channel and the video channel presenting the media item to the at least one vehicle occupant.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising determining, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, that a destination of the vehicle is one of a plurality of home locations of the at least one vehicle occupant.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the home automation system, the commands; and

configuring features of the home automation system in response to receiving the commands.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, that the vehicle is leaving the one of the at least one home locations;

connecting, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, to the home automation system of the one of the at least one home locations;

receiving, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, the state of features of the home automation system;

retrieving, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, from the account of the at least one vehicle occupant, departure settings for features of the home automation system;

generating, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, commands to implement the departure settings; and

sending, by the microprocessor executable home automation module, the commands to the home automation system.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the identity of the at least one vehicle occupant is determined by:

identifying facial features associated with the at least one vehicle occupant via at least one image sensor;

determining whether the identified facial features associated with the at least one vehicle occupant match user characteristics stored in a memory; and

when the identified facial features associated with the at least one vehicle occupant do not match the user characteristics stored in the memory, identifying the at least one vehicle occupant further comprises;

prompting the at least one vehicle occupant for identification information;

receiving identification information from the at least one vehicle occupant; and

storing the identification information received from the at least one vehicle occupant in the memory.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the identity of the at least one vehicle occupant is determined by detecting a device associated with the at least one vehicle occupant in an area of the vehicle.

15. A non-transitory computer readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a microprocessor executable home automation module, perform a method comprising:

receiving an identity of at least one occupant of a vehicle;

accessing an account of the at least one vehicle occupant, the account defining at least one home location for the identified vehicle occupant;

connecting to a home automation system of one of the at least one home locations;

receiving a state of features of the home automation system;

retrieving, from the account of the at least one vehicle occupant, arrival settings for features of the home automation system;

generating commands to implement the arrival settings; and

sending the commands to the home automation system.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15, further comprising:

sending a first set of commands to the home automation system when the vehicle is a first distance from the home location; and

sending a second set of commands to the home automation system when the vehicle is a second distance from the home location, wherein the first distance is greater than the second distance.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, further comprising:

receiving an identity of a first vehicle occupant and a second vehicle occupant;

determining a conflict between at least one setting of the first vehicle occupant and at least one setting of the second vehicle occupant;

determining a first priority of the first vehicle occupant and a second priority of the second vehicle occupant;

when the first priority is greater than the second priority, generating commands to implement the at least one setting of the first vehicle occupant; and

when the second priority is greater than the first priority, generating commands to implement the at least one setting of the second vehicle occupant.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 17, wherein the settings comprise at least one of activating, deactivating, and changing a setting of at least one of an interior light, an exterior light, a security system, an interior entertainment system, an exterior entertainment system, a thermostat, and a door lock of the home automation system.

19. A vehicle control system of a vehicle, comprising:

a memory; and

a microprocessor in communication with the memory, the microprocessor operable to execute a home automation module, the home automation module operable to;

receive an identity of at least one occupant of the vehicle;

access an account of the at least one vehicle occupant, the account defining at least one home location for the identified vehicle occupant;

connect to a home automation system of one of the at least one home locations;

receive a state of features of the home automation system;

retrieve, from the account of the at least one vehicle occupant, arrival settings for features of the home automation system;

generate a first set of commands and a second set of commands to implement the arrival settings;

send the first set of commands to the home automation system when the vehicle is a first distance from the home location; and

send the second set of commands to the home automation system when the vehicle is a second distance from the home location, wherein the first distance is greater than the second distance.

20. The vehicle control system of claim 19, wherein the home automation module is further operable to:

receive an identity of a first vehicle occupant and a second vehicle occupant;

determine a conflict between at least one setting of the first vehicle occupant and at least one setting of the second vehicle occupant;

determine a first priority of the first vehicle occupant and a second priority of the second vehicle occupant;

when the first priority is greater than the second priority, generate commands to implement the at least one setting of the first vehicle occupant; and

when the second priority is greater than the first priority, generate commands to implement the at least one setting of the second vehicle occupant.