System and method for collecting and utilizing user behavior data within an IoT system

• US 9,774,507 B2
• Filed: 01/06/2015
• Issued: 09/26/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 01/06/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Afero, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Afero, Inc.
• Inventors: Britt, Joe, Matsumura, Shin
• Primary Examiner(s): PHAN, MAN U
• Application Number:
  US14/590,799
• Publication Number:
  US 20160197798A1
• Time in Patent Office: 994 Days
• Field of Search: 370252-311, 370328-401, 709203-209, 709217-231
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2829 involving user profiles according to which the execution of a home appliance functionality is automatically triggered
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2834 Switching of information between an external network and a home network access arrangements H04L12/2856
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/04 Processing captured monitoring data, e.g. for logfile generation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0811 by checking connectivity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/10 Active monitoring, e.g. heartbeat, ping or trace-route
• 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: H04L 67/306 User profiles
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]

Abstract

A platform, apparatus and method for collecting and utilizing user behavior data within an IoT system. For example, one embodiment of a system comprises: an Internet of Things (IoT) hub comprising a network interface to couple the IoT hub to an IoT service, the IoT hub further comprising a local communication interface to communicatively couple the IoT hub to a plurality of IoT devices over local communication channels; the IoT hub comprising logic to collect data from each of the IoT devices and to control the IoT devices responsive to user input from a plurality of different users; user behavior data collection logic to collect user behavior data within the IoT system, the user behavior data collection logic to monitor and record the data accessed by each user from each of the IoT devices and the IoT devices controlled by each user; and user profile generation logic to analyze the user behavior data to determine a profile for each user; and targeted content generation logic to generate targeted content to be transmitted to each user in accordance with each determined profile.

Claims

1. An IoT system comprising:

a hardware Internet of Things (IoT) hub comprising a network interface to couple the IoT hub to an IoT service, the IoT hub further comprising a local communication interface to communicatively couple the IoT hub to a plurality of IoT devices over local communication channels;

the IoT hub comprising logic to collect data from each of the IoT devices and to control the IoT devices responsive to user input from a plurality of different users;

user behavior data collection logic circuitry to collect user behavior data within the IoT system, the user behavior data collection logic circuitry to monitor and record the data accessed by each user from each of the IoT devices and the IoT devices controlled by each user;

user profile generation logic circuitry to analyze the user behavior data to determine a profile for each user;

targeted content generation logic circuitry to generate targeted content to be transmitted to each user in accordance with each determined profile; and

wherein the IoT service transmits the user behavior data to one or more external services which execute the user profile generation logic circuitry to generate the profile for each user and with the targeted content generation logic circuitry to generate targeted content based on each user profile.

2. The system as in claim 1 wherein the user behavior data collection logic circuitry is executed on the IoT hub and the user behavior data is transmitted to the IoT service.

3. The system as in claim 2 wherein the user profile generation logic circuitry is executed on the IoT service or on an external service to generate the profile for each user.

4. The system as in claim 3 wherein the targeted content generation logic circuitry is executed on the IoT service or on an external service to generate the targeted content to be transmitted to each user.

5. The system as in claim 1 wherein the profile is generated for each user in accordance with data accessed by each user within the IoT system and IoT devices controlled by each user within the IoT system.

6. The system as in claim 1 further comprising an app or browser-executable code executed on a data processing device of a user, the app or browser-executable code to allow the user to control the IoT devices and access data collected by the IoT devices within the IoT system.

7. The system as in claim 6 wherein the app or browser-executable code is further configured to receive the targeted content generated based on the user'"'"'s profile and to display the targeted content for the user.

8. The system as in claim 7 wherein the targeted content includes one or more network links to allow the user to access additional information related to the targeted content.

9. The system as in claim 1 wherein one or more of the external services transmit the targeted content to a data processing device operated by a user.

10. A method executed within an IoT system comprising:

communicatively coupling an Internet of Things IoT(IoT) hub comprising a network interface to an IoT service,

communicatively coupling the IoT hub via a local communication interface to a plurality of IoT devices over local communication channels;

collecting data from each of the IoT devices and controlling each of the IoT devices responsive to user input from a plurality of different users;

collect user behavior data within the IoT system by monitoring and recording the data accessed by each user from each of the IoT devices and the IoT devices controlled by each user; and

transmitting the user behavior data to one or more external services, the one or more external services to analyze the user behavior data to determine a profile for each user and to generate targeted content to be transmitted to each user based on each determined user profile.

11. The method as in claim 10 wherein the operation of collecting user behavior data is performed by the IoT hub which transmits the user behavior data to the IoT service.

12. The method as in claim 11 wherein the operation of analyzing the user behavior data to generate a profile for each user performed by the IoT service or on an external service.

13. The method as in claim 12 wherein operation of generating targeted content is performed by the IoT service or on an external service.

14. The method as in claim 10 wherein the profile is generated for each user in accordance with data accessed by each user within the IoT system and IoT devices controlled by each user within the IoT system.

15. The method as in claim 10 further comprising providing an app or browser-executable code executed on a data processing device of a user, the app or browser-executable code to allow the user to control the IoT devices and access data collected by the IoT devices within the IoT system.

16. The method as in claim 15 wherein the app or browser-executable code is further configured to receive the targeted content generated based on the user'"'"'s profile and to display the targeted content for the user.

17. The method as in claim 16 wherein the targeted content includes one or more network links to allow the user to access additional information related to the targeted content.

18. The method as in claim 10 wherein one or more of the external services transmit the targeted content to a data processing device operated by a user.