System and method for tracking locations and activities

• US 9,980,082 B2
• Filed: 02/16/2016
• Issued: 05/22/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 08/26/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kooltechs Inc.
• Original Assignee: Kooltechs Inc.
• Inventors: Nhu, Hoang
• Primary Examiner(s): Rivero, Alejandro
• Application Number:
  US15/045,104
• Publication Number:
  US 20160174022A1
• Time in Patent Office: 826 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/021 Services related to particular areas, e.g. point of interest [POI] services, venue services or geofences
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/70 Services for machine-to-machine communication [M2M] or machine type communication [MTC]
• 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 84/18 Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks

Abstract

Systems, components, and methods for tracking, monitoring, and optionally reminding for use with hospitals, businesses, and office buildings. The components of the systems can include wearable advertising devices (WAD) that emit BLE signals, repeaters and/or gateways for receiving and relaying the BLE signals over a BLE Mesh network to a remote server. IR codes can be included to detect the presence of a WAD before the WAD is energized to emit a BLE signal.

Claims

1. A tracking and monitoring system comprising:

a wearable advertising device (WAD) comprising a housing having a BLE module and an IR receiver;

said BLE module of said WAD having a unique WAD ID;

a gateway having a BLE module and a WiFi module in an enclosure, said gateway is configured to receive said WAD ID over a BLE-Mesh network of repeaters and forwarding said WAD ID using said WiFi module to a remote server;

a button on said WAD configured for time-stamping a first event when the button is pressed, said first event with the time-stamping is configured to be received by the BLE module of the gateway and reported to the remote server over WiFi; and

the button is configured for time-stamping a second event when the button is pressed a second time, which is used with the first event to compute an elapsed time.

2. The tracking and monitoring system of claim 1, further comprising a signal capable dispenser having a BLE module, and wherein the BLE module on the signal capable dispenser is active only following activating a dispensing mechanism associated with said signal capable dispenser.

3. The tracking and monitoring system of claim 1, further comprising a repeater, said repeater comprising a BLE module for receiving said WAD ID from said WAD and forwarding said WAD ID to said gateway for sending to the remote server.

4. The tracking and monitoring system of claim 2, wherein said signal capable dispenser is a soap dispenser or a hand sanitizer dispenser having a mechanical hand pump actuator or an optical sensor for activating an actuator.

5. The tracking and monitoring system of claim 3, further comprising an IR transmitter associated with said repeater, said IR transmitter programmed to send an IR ID to said IR receiver in said WAD.

6. The tracking and monitoring system of claim 5, wherein said WAD ID is only transmitted after said IR receiver of said WAD receives a signal from said IR transmitter of said repeater.

7. The tracking and monitoring system of claim 1, further comprising an IR transmitter remote from the gateway, wherein said IR transmitter is configured to put said BLE module on said WAD on sleep mode.

8. The tracking and monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the gateway is programmed with a BLE-mesh networking software and wherein return signal strength indicator (RSSI) comprising moving-average is used to detect proximity and identity of the WAD and a repeater that runs a BLE-Mesh networking software.

9. The tracking and monitoring system of claim 1, wherein the gateway is a first gateway and further comprising a second gateway, wherein said second gateway comprises a BLE module and an IR module and wherein said IR module of said second gateway is configured to relay a second gateway IR ID to said WAD to wake up the BLE module of said WAD.

10. The tracking and monitoring system of claim 9, wherein said WAD is configured to emit said WAD ID and said second gateway IR ID to said second gateway for sending to the remote server.

11. The tracking and monitoring system of claim 2, wherein a number of times the dispensing mechanism has been activated over a time interval is communicated to the remote server.

12. The tracking and monitoring system of claim 1,

comprising a beacon signal comprising a dispenser combination ID comprising the unique WAD ID and a unique ID associated with a dispenser.