System and method for non-intrusive health monitoring in the home
View Patent ↗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.
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.