Remote alarm hushing

• US 9,854,425 B2
• Filed: 06/14/2016
• Issued: 12/26/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google Inc. (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Narang, Smriti, Ramachandran, Prashanth, Wang, Liang-Yun, Stebbins, Andrew William, Logue, Jay D.
• Primary Examiner(s): RUSHING, MARK S
• Application Number:
  US15/182,489
• Publication Number:
  US 20160371961A1
• Time in Patent Office: 560 Days
• Field of Search: 340506
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/182 Level alarms, e.g. alarms responsive to variables exceeding a threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/001 Alarm cancelling procedures or alarm forwarding decisions, e.g. based on absence of alarm confirmation
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/08 using communication transmission lines G08B13/19658, G08B21/0286, G08B25/016 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/10 using wireless transmission systems G08B25/009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 29/18 Prevention or correction of operating errors G08B29/02, G08B29/12 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 29/188 Data fusion; cooperative systems, e.g. voting among different detectors
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 3/10 using electric transmission; using electromagnetic transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2803 Home automation networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2809 indicating that an appliance service is present in a home automation network monitoring functionality H04L43/0817; discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services, H04L67/51
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2841 Wireless
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services
• 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: H04W 52/0229 where the received signal is a wanted signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/14 Direct-mode setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/38 triggered by timers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/005 Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/06 Transport layer protocols, e.g. TCP [Transport Control Protocol] over wireless transmission control protocol/Internet protocol [TCP/IP] or user datagram protocol [UDP] H04L69/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 : Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 : in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Methods and devices may be used to remotely hushing an event notification by receiving, from a sensor of the electronic device, an indication that a measured level has surpassed a notification threshold. In response to the indication, generating an advertising packet including an event notification for broadcast over a low power wireless point-to-point communication protocol and communicating the advertising packet including the event notification over the low power wireless point-to-point communication protocol.

Claims

1. A non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium storing instructions executable by one or more processors of an electronic device that configure the one or more processors to:

receive, from a sensor of the electronic device, an indication that a measured level has surpassed a notification threshold;

generate an advertisement packet including an event notification for broadcast over a low power wireless point-to-point communication protocol;

communicate the advertisement packet including the event notification over the low power wireless point-to-point communication protocol;

receive a hush request from a remote device to suppress the event notification;

determine whether the hush request is valid by determining whether the hush request is signed with a hush signature that is based at least upon authorization credentials shared via a remote service; and

if the hush request is valid, suppress the event notification.

2. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions configure the one or more processors to communicate an audible notification when the measured level has surpassed the notification threshold.

3. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the instructions configure the one or more processors to alter the audible notification in response to receiving the hush request.

4. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein:

the low power wireless point-to-point communication protocol comprises a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) communication protocol; and

the instructions configure the one or more processors to connect to the remote device via a wireless network comprising an 802.11 network or an 802.15.4 network.

5. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions configure the one or more processors to propagate the event notification to other devices to cause the other devices to initiate a remote event notification that indicates that an event has occurred near the sensor.

6. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions configure the one or more processors to add a critical service universally unique identifier (UUID) to the advertisement packet that enables the connection between the electronic device and the remote device.

7. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions configure the one or more processors to broadcast a default advertisement packet using a broadcasting rate at a default rate prior to receiving the indication that the measured level has surpassed the notification threshold or after the measured level has decreased below the notification threshold.

8. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the instructions configure the one or more processors to increase the broadcasting rate of the event notification after receiving the indication that the measured level has surpassed the notification threshold and has not decreased below the notification threshold.

19. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions configure the one or more processors to:

propagate the hush request to other devices;

propagate the event notification as remote event notifications to the other devices, prior to the propagation of the hush request, to cause the other devices to indicate that an event has occurred at the electronic device; and

propagate the hush request even when the event notification is unhushable, the hush request being configured to hush the remote event notifications at the other devices without hushing the electronic device.

9. An electronic device comprising:

a sensor;

one or more processors; and

memory storing instructions executable by the one or more processors to configure the one or more processors to;

receive, from the sensor, an indication that a measured level has surpassed a notification threshold;

generate an advertisement packet including an event notification for broadcast over a low power wireless point-to-point communication protocol;

communicate the advertisement packet including the event notification over the low power wireless point-to-point communication protocol;

receive a hush request from a remote device to suppress the event notification;

determine whether the hush request is valid by determining whether the hush request is signed with a hush signature that is based at least upon authorization credentials shared via a remote service; and

if the hush request is valid, suppress the event notification.

10. The electronic device of claim 9, wherein the instructions configure the one or more processors to:

if the hush request is valid, send a response to the remote device indicating that the hush has been completed; and

if the hush request is not valid, send a response to the remote device indicating that a hush cannot be completed because an authorization error occurred.

11. The electronic device of claim 9, wherein the instructions configure the one or more processors to:

generate a challenge code to verify a proximity of the electronic device to the remote device;

broadcast the challenge code;

determine whether the hush signature is based at least in part on the challenge code; and

if the hush signature is based at least in part on the challenge code, suppress the event notification.

12. The electronic device of claim 11, comprising an audio speaker, and wherein the instructions configure the one or more processors to cause the audio speaker to broadcast the challenge code as a sonic signal that includes a value that is generated after receiving the indication that the measured level has surpassed the notification threshold.

20. The electronic device of claim 9, wherein the instructions configure the one or more processors to:

propagate the hush request to other devices;

propagate the event notification as remote event notifications to the other devices, prior to the propagation of the hush request, to cause the other devices to indicate that an event has occurred at the electronic device; and

propagate the hush request even when the event notification is unhushable, the hush request being configured to hush the remote event notifications at the other devices without hushing the electronic device.

13. A method for hushing an event notification comprising:

receiving, from a sensor of a device, an indication that a measured level has surpassed a notification threshold;

generating an advertisement packet including an event notification for broadcast over a low power wireless point-to-point communication protocol;

communicating the advertisement packet including the event notification over the low power wireless point-to-point communication protocol;

receiving a hush request to suppress the event notification;

propagating the hush request to other devices;

propagating the event notification as remote event notifications to the other devices, prior to the propagating the hush request, to cause the other devices to indicate that an event has occurred at the device; and

propagating the hush request even when the event notification is unhushable, the hush request being configured to hush the remote event notifications at the other devices without hushing the device.

14. The method of claim 13, comprising identifying the event notification as unhushable if the measured level exceeds an unhushable level for a measurement type corresponding to the sensor, if the measurement type matches an unhushable type, if the event notification has previously been hushed, or if a remote device is not proximal to the device, or any combination thereof.

15. The method of claim 14 comprising updating the advertisement packet from a default advertisement packet by including an event notification data chunk that includes an indication of an event notification type, an event severity, and that the event notification is unhushable if the event notification is identified as an unhushable event notification.

16. The method of claim 13, comprising:

suppressing the event notification in response to the hush request; and

updating the advertisement packet with an indication that the device is currently in a hushed state.

17. The method of claim 16, comprising:

determining that a hushed period has elapsed since the receiving the hush request;

after the hushed period has elapsed, determining whether the measured level is still above the notification threshold;

if the measured level is still above the notification threshold, unhush the event notification and rebroadcast the advertisement packet; and

if the measured level is below the notification threshold, return to a default state.

18. The method of claim 13, comprising:

determining whether the received hush request is valid by determining whether the hush request is signed with a hush signature that is based at least upon authorization credentials shared via a remote service; and

if the hush request is valid, suppressing the event notification.

21. A method for hushing an event notification comprising:

receiving, from a sensor of a device, an indication that a measured level has surpassed a notification threshold;

generating an advertisement packet including an event notification for broadcast over a low power wireless point-to-point communication protocol;

identifying the event notification as unhushable if the measured level exceeds an unhushable level for a measurement type corresponding to the sensor, if the measurement type matches an unhushable type, if the event notification has previously been hushed, or if a remote device is not proximal to the device, or any combination thereof; and

communicating the advertisement packet including the event notification over the low power wireless point-to-point communication protocol.

22. The method of claim 21, comprising updating the advertisement packet from a default advertisement packet by including an event notification data chunk that includes an indication of an event notification type, an event severity, and that the event notification is unhushable if the event notification is identified as an unhushable event notification.

23. The method of claim 21, comprising:

receiving a hush request from the remote device to suppress the event notification;

determining whether the hush request is valid by determining whether the hush request is signed with a hush signature that is based at least upon authorization credentials shared via a remote service; and

if the hush request is valid, suppressing the event notification.

24. The method of claim 23, comprising communicating an audible notification when the measured level has surpassed the notification threshold.