System and method for setting an alarm by a third party

• US 8,339,259 B1
• Filed: 06/16/2009
• Issued: 12/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: T-Mobile Innovations LLC (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Original Assignee: Sprint Communications Company LP (Deutsche Telekom AG)
• Inventors: Biere, Devon L., Gailloux, Michael A., Samson, Kenneth, Dillon, Jeff
• Primary Examiner(s): Lieu, Julie
• Application Number:
  US12/485,239
• Time in Patent Office: 1,288 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 340/539.12
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

An alarm device is provided. The alarm device comprises a processor, an alerting component, a communication interface, and an alarm application. The communication interface receives messages encapsulating an alarm control message from a third party. The alarm application, when executed by the processor, receives the message from the communication interface, validates the message based on a code embedded in the message, parses a body of the message to extract the encapsulated alarm control message, schedules an alarm event based on the body of the message, and activates the alerting component when the alarm event occurs.

Claims

1. An alarm device, comprising:

a processor;

an alerting component;

a communication interface to receive messages, the message encapsulating an alarm control message from a third party; and

an alarm application that, when executed by the processor, receives the message from the communication interface, validates the message based on a code embedded in the message, parses a body of the message to extract the encapsulated alarm control message, one of schedules and turns off an alarm event based on the body of the message, and activates the alerting component at the scheduled time when the alarm event occurs.

2. The alarm device of claim 1, wherein the communication interface is a wireless interface.

3. The alarm device of claim 1, wherein the processor, the alerting component, and the communication interface are contained in a mobile electronic device.

4. The alarm device of claim 3, wherein the mobile electronic device is one of a mobile phone, a personal digital assistant, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a wristwatch, and a media player.

5. The alarm device of claim 1, wherein the alerting component emits at least one of an audible alert and a visual alert when the alarm event occurs.

6. The alarm device of claim 1, wherein the encapsulated alarm control message comprises a plurality of information components and the alarm device further comprising an interface, the interface adapted to receive an input to select one of the information components for presentation and to present the selected information component.

7. The alarm device of claim 1, wherein the encapsulated alarm control message comprises a plurality of information components comprising at least one of an alarm activation time, an alarm on-off state, a designation of a work location, an author of the alarm control message, a time the alarm control message was authored, and a time the alarm control message was transmitted.

8. A computer based method of setting an alarm by a third party, comprising:

receiving, by a computer, input defining an alarm event;

formatting, by the computer, a message comprising a subject and a body, the subject embedding an authentication code, the body encapsulating information about the alarm event; and

transmitting the message to a first alarm device, wherein the first alarm device is adapted to generate an alarm at a time based on specified in the message, wherein the alarm event is associated with a work schedule.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the authentication code comprises a string of at least six characters.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the alarm event is associated with one of a food service work schedule, a healthcare worker work schedule, a law enforcement worker work schedule, a communication services work schedule, and an emergency responder work schedule.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the message is a short messaging service message.

12. The method of claim 8, further including receiving, by the computer, input defining the first alarm device and a second alarm device and further including transmitting the message to the second alarm device, wherein the second alarm device is adapted to generate an alert at a time based on the message.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the input defining the alarm event comprises a work schedule and further comprising analyzing the work schedule, an expected worker preparation time, and an expected worker commute time to determine the time for the alarm device to generate the alert.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the information about the alarm event comprises at least one of an author defining the alarm event, a time the alarm event was created, and an alarm on-off state.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein transmitting the message to the alarm device comprises transmitting the message over a wireless link.

16. The method of claim 8, wherein the message causes the alarm device to generate an alert at a time later than a time defined in a previously transmitted message.

17. A computer program product, comprising a computer usable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therein, the computer readable program code adapted to be executed to implement a method for setting an alarm by a third party, the method comprising:

providing a system, wherein the system comprises software modules, and wherein the software modules comprise a messaging module, a user interface module, and an alarm composition module;

presenting a plurality of alarm composition controls to a display screen by the user interface module, wherein the alarm composition controls comprise a time of alarm activation;

receiving alarm composition inputs from an input device by the user interface module;

formatting a message subject comprising an authentication code by the alarm composition module;

formatting a message body based on the alarm composition inputs by the alarm composition module;

providing the message subject and the message body to the messaging module; and

transmitting a message by the messaging module based on the message body and the message subject.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the authentication code is automatically determined by the alarm composition module based on an identification of a receiver of the message.

19. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the alarm composition controls further comprise at least one of an identification of a receiver of the message, a phone number of a receiver of the message, an identification of a user of the system, a time of composition of the message, a report-to location, and an on/off alarm state.

20. The computer program product of claim 19, wherein the identification of a receiver of the message is one of an individual receiver of the message and a group of receivers of the message, and when a group of receivers of the message is identified, the alarm composition module automatically formats messages directed to each member of the group of receivers.