User messaging based on changes in tracked activity metrics

• US 9,641,469 B2
• Filed: 04/14/2016
• Issued: 05/02/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/06/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fitbit, Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Fitbit, Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Choudhary, Nichiketa, Roberts, Timothy, Knight, David
• Primary Examiner(s): Luu, Le H
• Application Number:
  US15/099,325
• Publication Number:
  US 20160234143A1
• Time in Patent Office: 383 Days
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0214 of power generation or supply
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2560/0242 adapted to measure environmental factors, e.g. temperature, pollution
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2562/0219 Inertial sensors, e.g. accelerometers, gyroscopes, tilt switches
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0022 Monitoring a patient using a global network, e.g. telephone networks, internet
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02055 Simultaneously evaluating both cardiovascular condition and temperature
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/021 Measuring pressure in heart or blood vessels A61B5/0205 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02405 Determining heart rate variability
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1112 Global tracking of patients, e.g. by using GPS
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1118 Determining activity level
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1123 Discriminating type of movement, e.g. walking or running A61B5/1116, A61B5/112 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/14551 for measuring blood gases
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/22 Ergometry; Measuring muscular strength or the force of a muscular blow exercising apparatus A63B21/00 ; measuring of work or force in general G01L
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/222 combined with detection or measurement of physiological parameters, e.g. heart rate
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4809 Sleep detection, i.e. determining whether a subject is asleep or not
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4812 Detecting sleep stages or cycles
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/4815 Sleep quality
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/681 Wristwatch-type devices
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6838 Clamps or clips
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/743 Displaying an image simultaneously with additional graphical information, e.g. symbols, charts, function plots
• CPC Class Codes: A63B 24/0062 Monitoring athletic performances, e.g. for determining the work of a user on an exercise apparatus, the completed jogging or cycling distance
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 22/006 : Pedometers
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/00 : Digital computers in general details G06F1/00 – G06F13/00; Data processing equipment in general
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24578 : using ranking
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 : Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 : Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 : Templates
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/182 : Level alarms, e.g. alarms responsive to variables exceeding a threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 3/10 : using electric transmission; using electromagnetic transmission
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 5/36 : using visible light sources
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 6/00 : Tactile signalling systems, e.g. personal calling systems
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/30 : relating to physical therapies or activities, e.g. physiotherapy, acupressure or exercising
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 80/00 : ICT specially adapted for facilitating communication between medical practitioners or patients, e.g. for collaborative diagnosis, therapy or health monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/1822 : Conducting the conference, e.g. admission, detection, selection or grouping of participants, correlating users to one or more conference sessions, prioritising transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/00 : User-to-user messaging in packet-switching networks, transmitted according to store-and-forward or real-time protocols, e.g. e-mail
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/046 : Interoperability with other network applications or services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/52 : for supporting social networking services
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/403 : Arrangements for multi-party communication, e.g. for conferences data switching systems for conference H04L12/18; arrangements for connecting several subscribers to a common circuit, i.e. affording conference facilities H04M3/56; television conferencing systems H04N7/15
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 : Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/55 : Push-based network services
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/724 : User interfaces specially adapted for cordless or mobile telephones

Abstract

A system comprising at least one server computer having at least one processor programmed to: receive, over a network, activity data of a first user measured by an activity monitoring device; process the activity data of the first user to update a value of an activity metric for the first user; responsive to updating the value of the activity metric for the first user, identify a change in an inequality relationship between the value of the activity metric for the first user and a value of the activity metric for a second user; and, responsive to identifying the change in the inequality relationship, trigger, over the network, a first user device to prompt the first user to generate a message to the second user for display on a second user device.

Claims

1. A system comprising at least one server computer having at least one processor programmed to:

receive, over a network, activity data of a first user measured by an activity monitoring device;

process the activity data of the first user to update a value of an activity metric for the first user;

responsive to updating the value of the activity metric for the first user, identify a change in an inequality relationship between the value of the activity metric for the first user and a value of the activity metric for a second user, the change in the inequality relationship being defined by the value of the activity metric for the first user changing, from being less than the value of the activity metric for the second user, to being greater than the value of the activity metric for the second user; and

responsive to identifying the change in the inequality relationship, trigger, over the network, a first user device to prompt the first user to generate a message to the second user for display on a second user device.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the inequality relationship between the value of the activity metric for the first user and the value of the activity metric for the second user defines a relative ranking of the first user and the second user on a competitive leaderboard for the activity metric.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the change in the inequality relationship defines a change in the relative ranking of the first user and the second user on the competitive leaderboard for the activity metric.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the triggering of the first user device to prompt the first user to generate a message includes identifying the change in the relative ranking of the first user and the second user.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the triggering of the first user device to prompt the first user to generate a message to the second user includes triggering a notification to the first user, the notification providing access to an interface configured to receive input from the first user to define content of the message to the second user.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the notification is a push notification to a mobile device.

7. The system of claim 5, wherein the interface provides at least one option to send a predefined message to the second user.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the activity metric is defined by one or more of the following:

stepcount, elevation climbed, distance traveled, active amount of time.

9. A system comprising at least one server computer having at least one processor programmed to:

receive, over a network, activity data of a first user measured by an activity monitoring device;

process the activity data of the first user to update a value of an activity metric for the first user;

responsive to updating the value of the activity metric for the first user, identify a change in an inequality relationship between the value of the activity metric for the first user and a value of the activity metric for a second user, the change in the inequality relationship being defined by the value of the activity metric for the first user changing, from being greater than the value of the activity metric for the second user, to being less than the value of the activity metric for the second user; and

responsive to identifying the change in the inequality relationship, trigger, over the network, a first user device to prompt the first user to generate a message to the second user for display on a second user device.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the inequality relationship between the value of the activity metric for the first user and the value of the activity metric for the second user defines a relative ranking of the first user and the second user on a competitive leaderboard for the activity metric.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the change in the inequality relationship defines a change in the relative ranking of the first user and the second user on the competitive leaderboard for the activity metric.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the triggering of the first user device to prompt the first user to generate a message includes identifying the change in the relative ranking of the first user and the second user.

13. The system of claim 9, wherein the triggering of the first user device to prompt the first user to generate a message to the second user includes triggering a notification to the first user, the notification providing access to an interface configured to receive input from the first user to define content of the message to the second user.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the notification is a push notification to a mobile device.

15. The system of claim 13, wherein the interface provides at least one option to send a predefined message to the second user.

16. The system of claim 9, wherein the activity metric is defined by one or more of the following:

stepcount, elevation climbed, distance traveled, active amount of time.

17. A system comprising at least one server computer having at least one processor programmed to:

process requests, received over a network from a plurality of client devices, for a plurality of users to join a group event, the group event defined for an activity metric for each of the plurality of users for a period of time;

process activity data, received over the network, associated with each of the plurality of users during the period of time to track the activity metric for each of the plurality of users, the activity data for a given user being determined from motion data detected by an activity monitoring device associated with the given user;

analyze the activity metrics of the plurality of users to determine a ranking of the plurality of users based on their activity metrics, and to identify a change in relationship between activity metrics of two or more of the plurality of users, the change in relationship being defined by an activity metric of a first one of the users surpassing an activity metric of a second one of the users by at least a predefined amount;

responsive to identifying the change in relationship, identify one or more user accounts of select ones of the plurality of users, select a message template based on the identified change in relationship, and populate the message template to generate a message describing the change in relationship; and

send the message over the network to one or more of the client devices associated with the one or more user accounts for display thereon.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein when the identified change in relationship affects a position in the ranking that is equal to or higher than a threshold position, then the select ones of the plurality of users to receive the message are defined by all of the plurality of users.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein when the identified change in relationship affects a position in the ranking that is less than the threshold position, then the select ones of the plurality of users to receive the message are defined by the two or more of the plurality of users for whom the change in relationship is identified.

20. The system of claim 17, wherein the group event defines one of a competitive race for the plurality of users, a common goal for each of the plurality of users, or a collective goal for the plurality of users.

21. The system of claim 17, wherein sending the message is defined by one or more of a push notification, a private message, or an e-mail.

22. The system of claim 17, wherein selecting the message template is based on the identified one or more user accounts of the select ones of the plurality of users.

23. The system of claim 17, wherein the select ones of the plurality of users to receive the message are defined by one, or two, or some, or all of the plurality of users, that are selected based on characteristics of the change in the relationship between activity metrics of the two or more of the plurality of users.

24. The system of claim 17, wherein populating the message template is defined by insertion of custom text that is based on activity metrics of the two or more users for whom the change in relationship is identified.

25. The system of claim 17, wherein the message is displayed as part of a message feed defined for the group event.

26. A system comprising at least one server computer having at least one processor programmed to:

process requests, received over a network from a plurality of client devices, for a plurality of users to join a group event, the group event defined for an activity metric for each of the plurality of users for a period of time;

process activity data, received over the network, associated with each of the plurality of users during the period of time to track the activity metric for each of the plurality of users, the activity data for a given user being determined from motion data detected by an activity monitoring device associated with the given user;

analyze the activity metrics of the plurality of users to determine a ranking of the plurality of users based on their activity metrics, and to identify a change in relationship between activity metrics of two or more of the plurality of users, the change in relationship being defined by an activity metric of a first one of the users surpassing an activity metric of a second one of the users by less than a predefined amount;

responsive to identifying the change in relationship, identify one or more user accounts of select ones of the plurality of users, select a message template based on the identified change in relationship, and populate the message template to generate a message describing the change in relationship; and

send the message over the network to one or more of the client devices associated with the one or more user accounts for display thereon.

27. The system of claim 26, wherein when the identified change in relationship affects a position in the ranking that is equal to or higher than a threshold position, then the select ones of the plurality of users to receive the message are defined by all of the plurality of users.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein when the identified change in relationship affects a position in the ranking that is less than the threshold position, then the select ones of the plurality of users to receive the message are defined by the two or more of the plurality of users for whom the change in relationship is identified.

29. The system of claim 26, wherein sending the message is defined by one or more of a push notification, a private message, or an e-mail.

30. The system of claim 26, wherein populating the message template is defined by insertion of custom text that is based on activity metrics of the two or more users for whom the change in relationship is identified.