System and method for non-intrusive health monitoring in the home

• US 8,905,927 B2
• Filed: 11/30/2010
• Issued: 12/09/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Universal Electronics, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Universal Electronics, Inc.
• Inventors: Hayes, Patrick H., Cheung Hyen, David Chong
• Primary Examiner(s): Thomson, William
• Assistant Examiner(s): JIAN, SHIRLEY XUEYING
• Application Number:
  US12/956,444
• Publication Number:
  US 20120136217A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,470 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 600/301
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 2505/07 Home care
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0002 Remote monitoring of patients using telemetry, e.g. transmission of vital signals via a communication network A61B5/07 takes precedence; transmission systems for measured values G08C; transmission H04B; transmission of digital information H04L; wireless communication networks H04W
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0004 characterised by the type of physiological signal transmitted
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/02055 Simultaneously evaluating both cardiovascular condition and temperature
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/11 Measuring movement of the entire body or parts thereof, e.g. head or hand tremor, mobility of a limb for measuring pulse A61B5/02 ;A61B5/1038 takes precedence; motion detection to correct for motion artifacts in physiological signals A61B5/721
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6826 Finger
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/6898 Portable consumer electronic devices, e.g. music players, telephones, tablet computers
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/72 Signal processing specially adapted for physiological signals or for diagnostic purposes character recognition, recognising digital ink, document-oriented image-based pattern recognition G06V30/00; recognition or understanding of postal images G06V30/424
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/746 Alarms related to a physiological condition, e.g. details of setting alarm thresholds or avoiding false alarms alarms per se G08B
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/747 in case of emergency, i.e. alerting emergency services
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/7475 User input or interface means, e.g. keyboard, pointing device, joystick
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42201 biosensors, e.g. heat sensor for presence detection, EEG sensors or any limb activity sensors worn by the user input arrangements for interaction with the human body based on nervous system activity detection G06F3/015
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/42204 User interfaces specially adapted for controlling a client device through a remote control device; Remote control devices therefor constructive details of casings for the remote control device H01H9/0235; user interfaces for controlling a tuning device of a television receiver through a remote control H03J9/00; remote control of peripheral devices connected to a television receiver through the remote control device of the television receiver H04B1/205
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44218 Detecting physical presence or behaviour of the user, e.g. using sensors to detect if the user is leaving the room or changes his face expression during a TV program methods or arrangements for recognising human body or animal bodies or body parts G06V40/10; methods or arrangements for acquiring or recognising human faces, facial parts, facial sketches, facial expressions G06V40/16; methods or arrangements for recognising movements or behaviour G06V40/20; arrangements for identifying users in broadcast systems H04H60/45
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/6168 involving cable transmission, e.g. using a cable modem
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/814 comprising emergency warnings arrangements specially adapted for emergency or urgency in broadcast systems H04H20/59; arrangements for providing alarms, notifications, alerts to substation in data switching networks H04L12/1895

Abstract

A hand-held device, such as a remote control, is provided for operation of a consumer appliance and is equipped with one or more biometric sensors to capture and report on the health condition of a user of the hand-held device. The data captured by such a hand-held device may be evaluated locally in the hand-held device itself or may be conveyed to a target consumer appliance either for local evaluation by that consumer appliance or for onward transmission to a central off-site monitoring service.

Claims

1. A system for providing a health monitoring service, comprising:

a controllable consumer appliance;

a hand-held, universal remote control device having a housing, a processing device, a transmitter coupled to the processing device, a user interface activatable to cause the processing device to initiate a transmission of commands to control functional operations of the controllable consumer appliance via use of the transmitter, a handling sensor coupled to the processing device for providing to the processing device a sensor signal in response to a detected handling of the hand-held, universal remote control by a user, and at least one biometric sensor arranged on the housing of the hand-held, universal remote control and coupled to the processing device for capturing biometric data from the user when the user grasps the housing of the hand-held, universal remote control and for providing the captured biometric data to the processing device with the processing device thereafter functioning to transmit to the controllable consumer appliance data indicative of the captured biometric data via use of the transmitter; and

a centralized, health monitoring service center in communication with the controllable consumer appliance for receiving from the consumer appliance data indicative of the captured biometric data;

wherein the processing device has associated programming that is activated when the handling sensor generates the sensor signal in response to a detected handling of the hand-held, universal remote control by the user whereupon the activated programming functions to cause the processing device to enable the capturing of biometric data by the at least one biometric sensor when a predetermined amount of time has elapsed since a previous capturing of biometric data with one or more of the controllable consumer appliance, the hand-held, universal remote control, and the centralized, health monitoring service center, then functioning to evaluate the captured biometric data to determine a health condition of the user.

2. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the controllable consumer appliance comprises a settop box.

3. The system as recited in claim 2, wherein the settop box is in communication with the centralized, health monitoring system via a cable network.

4. The system as recited in claim 2, wherein the settop box is in communication with the centralized, health monitoring system via a satellite network.

5. The system as recited in claim 2, wherein the settop box is in further communication with a television device.

6. The system as recited in claim 5, wherein the settop box issues a transmission to cause the television device to present a warning that captured biometric data exceeds one or more threshold values.

7. The system as recited in claim 6, wherein the centralized, health monitoring system instructs the settop box to issue the transmission to cause the television device to present the warning.

8. The system as recited in claim 6, wherein the hand-held, universal remote control instructs the settop box to issue the transmission to cause the television device to present the warning.

9. The system as recited in claim 2, wherein functional operations of the television device are also controllable via use of the hand-held, universal remote control.

10. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the handling sensor comprises an accelerometer.

11. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the handling sensor comprises a capacitance sensor.

12. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein the user interface further comprises a panic button activatable to cause an emergency alert to be transmitted to the controllable consumer appliance for receipt by the centralized, health monitoring service center.

13. The system as recited in claim 1, wherein data captured by the at least one biometric sensor is used to distinguish between plural different users of the system.

14. A system for providing a health monitoring service, comprising:

a controllable consumer appliance;

a hand-held, universal remote control having a housing, a processing device, a transmitter coupled to the processing device, a user interface having user interface elements that are activatable to cause the processing device to initiate a transmission of commands to control functional operations of the controllable consumer appliance via use of the transmitter, and at least one biometric sensor arranged on the housing of the hand-held, universal remote control for capturing biometric data from a user when the user grasps the housing of the hand-held, universal remote control and for providing the captured biometric data to the processing device with the processing device thereafter functioning to transmit to the controllable consumer appliance data indicative of the captured biometric data via use of the transmitter; and

a centralized, health monitoring service center in communication with the controllable consumer appliance for receiving from the consumer appliance data indicative of the captured biometric data;

wherein the processing device has associated programming that is activated in response to a detected user interaction with one or more of the user interface elements whereupon the activated programming functions to cause the processing device to enable the capturing of biometric data by the at least one biometric sensor when a predetermined amount of time has elapsed since a previous capturing of biometric data with one or more of the controllable consumer appliance, the hand-held, universal remote control, and the centralized, health monitoring service center, then functioning to evaluate the captured biometric data to determine a health condition of the user.

15. The system as recited in claim 14, wherein the controllable consumer appliance comprises a settop box.

16. The system as recited in claim 15, wherein the settop box is in communication with the centralized, health monitoring system via a cable network.

17. The system as recited in claim 15, wherein the settop box is in communication with the centralized, health monitoring system via a satellite network.

18. The system as recited in claim 15, wherein the settop box is in further communication with a television device.

19. The system as recited in claim 18, wherein the settop box issues a transmission to cause the television device to present a warning that captured biometric data exceeds one or more threshold values.

20. The system as recited in claim 19, wherein the centralized, health monitoring system instructs the settop box to issue the transmission to cause the television device to present the warning.

21. The system as recited in claim 19, wherein the hand-held, universal remote control instructs the settop box to issue the transmission to cause the television device to present the warning.

22. The system as recited in claim 15, wherein functional operations of the television device are also controllable via use of the hand-held, universal remote control.

23. The system as recited in claim 14, wherein the user interface further comprises a panic button activatable to cause an emergency alert to be transmitted to the controllable consumer appliance for receipt by the centralized, health monitoring service center.

24. The system as recited in claim 14, wherein data captured by the at least one biometric sensor is used to distinguish between plural different users of the system.