VEHICLE DIAGNOSTIC INFORMATION VIA A WIRELESS COMMUNICATION LINK

• US 20140074346A1
• Filed: 09/07/2012
• Published: 03/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/07/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cellco Partnership, Inc. (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Chiaverini, Marc Jason
• Granted Patent: US 10,083,548 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 701/31.5
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 5/008 communicating information to a remotely located station transmission systems for measured values G08C

Abstract

Wireless communication takes place between a first computing device and an appliance having a data center including diagnostic data. A subset of the diagnostic data may be communicated to a first server using a communications network and in turn information associated with the subset of the diagnostic data may be communicated to a second server. The second server then provides feedback to the first server that may be at least partially communicated to the first computing device. Wireless communication may also take place between a second computing device and the appliance, the second computing device selectively receiving a different subset of the diagnostic data. Subsets of different diagnostic data from different computing devices may result in a larger subset of the diagnostic data.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

establishing a first wireless communication between a first computing device and an appliance with a data center having diagnostic data associated with appliance operation upon the first computing device coming within a first predetermined geographic range in close proximity to the appliance;

receiving a first set of diagnostic data from the appliance by way of the first wireless communication;

communicating at least a subset of the first set of diagnostic data from the first computing device to a first server by way of a communications network;

distributing first computing device information associated with the first set of diagnostic data from the first server to a second server;

receiving feedback from the second server in response to the first computing device information; and

providing the feedback to the first computing device.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

establishing a two-way wireless communication in the form of the first wireless communication between the first computing device and the appliance; and

selectively transmitting at least a portion of the feedback to the appliance.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication comprises Near Field Communication (NFC).

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising ensuring authentication for the establishing of the first wireless communication between the first computing device and the appliance at least by requesting authentication authorization through the first server and authenticating the first computing device.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

establishing a second wireless communication between a second computing device and the appliance upon the second computing device coming within a second predetermined geographic range in close proximity to the appliance;

receiving a second set of diagnostic data from the appliance by way of the second wireless communication;

communicating at least a subset of the second set of diagnostic data from the second computing device;

distributing second computing device information associated with the second set of diagnostic data;

receiving feedback in response to the second computing device information; and

providing the feedback to the second computing device.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one of:

the at least subset of the first and second set of diagnostic data are different or the first and second computing device information are different.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the feedback received in response to the second computing device information is from the second server.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the communicating from the second computing device is to the first server.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the communicating from the second computing device is to a server other than the first server, the first server and other server being connected to one another with at least the subset of diagnostic data from the first computing device and the at least the subset of diagnostic data from the second computing device combined to comprise at least a larger subset of the diagnostic data from the data center of the appliance.

10. The method of claim 6, wherein the at least the subset of diagnostic data from the first computing device and the at least the subset of diagnostic data from the second computing device combined comprise a larger subset of total diagnostic data from the data center of the appliance.

11. The method of claim 5, wherein the first wireless communication comprises Near Field Communication and the second wireless communication comprises Wi-Fi.

12. The method of claim 5, further comprising conducting the first wireless communication and the second wireless communication substantially concurrently.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving additional feedback from a third server in response to diagnostic information from the appliance, the third server having different first computing device information as part of a dissimilar distributing from the first server to the third server.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the third server is at least one of a government server, an advertisement server, a fleet management server, and an insurance company server.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the appliance comprises a vehicle and diagnostic data is at least a subset of:

battery status, battery charge, fuel consumption, fuel level, mileage, transmission speed, engine speed, tire pressure, speed, temperature, oil pressure, air flow, pitch, yaw, roll and acceleration.

16. A method, comprising:

in a computing device,

establishing a wireless communication with a data center in a vehicle using a Near Field Communication (NFC) protocol interface;

requesting and subsequently receiving vehicle diagnostic information from the data center using the NFC interface;

providing at least a subset of the received vehicle diagnostic information to a first server through a communication network; and

receiving information responsive to the at least a subset of the received vehicle diagnostic information from the first server.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein the communication network includes a cellular network.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising the computing device:

requesting from an authorization server an authentication and authorization to receive information from the data center; and

receiving the authorization from the authorization server prior to requesting the vehicle diagnostic information from the data center.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the authorization server is the first server.

20. A system comprising:

a first computing device having a wireless communication protocol interface for selectively communicating with an appliance using the wireless communication protocol interface to receive diagnostic data;

a communications network, the first computing device connected to the communications network;

a first server, the first server connected to the communications network, and wherein the first computing device is configured to communicate at least a first subset of the diagnostic data to the first server by way of the communications network;

a second server, the second server in communication with the first server and selectively receiving first computing device information associated with the at least the first subset of the diagnostic data from the first server; and

a second computing device having a wireless communication protocol interface for selectively communicating with the appliance and configured to communicate at least a second subset of the diagnostic data to a second server by way of a second communications network.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the first subset of the diagnostic data and the second subset of the diagnostic data are combined to comprise a larger subset of the diagnostic data that is used by at least one of the first server and the second server.

22. The system of claim 20, wherein the wireless communication protocol interface for the first computing device and the wireless communication protocol interface for the second computing device are dissimilar.

23. The system of claim 22, wherein the wireless communication protocol interface for the first computing device is Near Field Communication (NFC) and the wireless communication protocol interface for the second computing device is Wi-Fi.

24. The system of claim 20, the first server analyzing the at least first subset of the diagnostic data and providing information based on the analysis to the second server and wherein at least a portion of the feedback from the second server based on the information from the first server is provided to the first computing device.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the wireless communication protocol interface for the first computing device is two-way, the first computing device using the at least the portion of the feedback to configure a response to be sent over the wireless communication protocol interface.