Conditional separation alert system

• US 9,854,385 B2
• Filed: 11/30/2014
• Issued: 12/26/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/29/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ian James Oliver, Stephen Edward Ecob
• Original Assignee: Ian James Oliver, Stephen Edward Ecob
• Inventors: Oliver, Ian James, Ecob, Stephen Edward
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Albert
• Application Number:
  US14/556,151
• Publication Number:
  US 20150154847A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,122 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/1427 with transmitter-receiver for distance detection
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 13/1436 with motion detection
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0227 System arrangements with a plurality of child units
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0247 System arrangements wherein the alarm criteria uses signal strength
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/0277 Communication between units on a local network, e.g. Bluetooth, piconet, zigbee, Wireless Personal Area Networks [WPAN]
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/24 Reminder alarms, e.g. anti-loss alarms
• CPC Class Codes: H04Q 9/00 Arrangements in telecontrol or telemetry systems for selectively calling a substation from a main station, in which substation desired apparatus is selected for applying a control signal thereto or for obtaining measured values therefrom
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: Y02A 90/10 Information and communication technologies [ICT] supporting adaptation to climate change, e.g. for weather forecasting or climate simulation
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

A system for detecting and reporting the separation of two entities including where the entities are people or items. In some implementations, the system performs separation checking triggered by movement conditions, or by checking of the state of an entity upon separation, and additionally adapts checking methods according to a condition.

Claims

1. A conditional separation alert system, comprising:

one or more article protection devices, each consisting of a low power transceiver where in each article protection device is attached to a separate weather related article; and

a mobile computing device having a low power transceiver, a processor, and a memory wherein the mobile device is adapted to wirelessly receive weather data and to determine if any of the weather related articles are relevant to the user of the mobile device based on the weather data, wherein the mobile computing device establishes a communication link with the one or more article protection devices, by a wireless communication link, if the article protection device is attached to a weather related article that has been determined to be relevant to the user, wherein the mobile communications device determines if the distance between the mobile communication device and the one or more article protection devices attached to the relevant article exceeds a threshold and alerting the user that the threshold has been exceeded wherein the distance is determined by the signal strength from the communications link and a warning is displayed on the mobile computing device.

2. The condition separation alert system of claim 1, wherein the weather related article is selected from the class comprising:

an umbrella, an article of clothing, sunscreen, and medicine.

3. The condition separation alert system of claim 2, wherein the weather data includes at least data from one member of the class consisting of:

temperature, precipitation, UV radiation, pollution, and humidity.

4. The condition separation alert system of claim 2, wherein the communication link includes:

Bluetooth, WiFi, cellular or radio.

5. A method of monitoring the location of weather related items, comprising:

attaching a low power transceiver to one or more weather related article;

using a mobile computing device with a low power transceiver, processor, and memory to receive weather data wirelessly;

using the processor to determine which of the weather related items are relevant to the user of the mobile computing device based on the received weather data;

establishing a communications link between the low power transceiver of the mobile device and the low power transceiver of one or more of the weather related articles that was determined to be relevant to the user;

monitoring the communications link to determine the distance between the transceiver on at least one of the relevant articles and the mobile computing device; and

outputting an alert on the display of the mobile computing device if the distance is determined to exceed a threshold.