Portable biometric monitoring devices having location sensors

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9864066-B2
Application number	US-201514656260-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 12, 2015
Priority date	Apr 1, 2013
Publication date	Jan 9, 2018
Grant date	Jan 9, 2018

Abstract

Assisted-GPS for a portable biometric monitoring device is provided. The portable biometric monitoring device may obtain updated ephemeris data from an associated secondary device via a short-range, low-power communication protocol. The secondary device may be a computing device such as a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Various rules may control when the ephemeris data is updated. The ephemeris data may be used in the calculation of the global position of the portable biometric monitoring device. Additionally, the portable biometric monitoring device may communicate downloaded position fixing data to the associated secondary device. The associated secondary device may then calculate the global position from the position fixing data.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of determining a global position of a worn biometric monitoring device with a memory configured to store ephemeris data, the method comprising:
(a) determining that a more recently updated version of ephemeris data than the ephemeris data stored in the memory of the worn biometric monitoring device is available;
(b) determining that a wireless connection between the worn biometric monitoring device and a secondary device has a connection strength above a predetermined level; and
(c) responsive to (a) and (b), obtaining the more recently updated version of the ephemeris data via the wireless connection from the secondary device and storing the updated ephemeris data in the memory, wherein the updated ephemeris data originated from a server configured to serve ephemeris data.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the wireless connection comprises a short-range, low-power communication protocol.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
(d) calculating the global position of the worn biometric monitoring device using the ephemeris data obtained in (b).

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the worn biometric monitoring device comprises a navigation data receiver and the calculation of the global position in (d) comprises:
(i) determining orbital positions of navigation satellites according to the ephemeris data obtained in (c);
(ii) obtaining position fixing data via the navigation data receiver from the navigation satellites; and
(iii) calculating the global position of the worn biometric monitoring device using the position fixing data obtained in (ii).

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein (c) further comprises obtaining the updated ephemeris data associated with the navigation satellites that transmitted the position fixing data to the navigation data receiver.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the secondary device is a portable device.

7. The method of claim 2 , wherein the short-range, low-power communication protocol is selected from the group consisting of: Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE), ANT, near field communication (NFC), ZigBee, IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15, Infrared Data Association (IrDA) protocols, and standards related to any of the foregoing.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein (a) comprises:
(i) determining a time remaining before stored ephemeris data is no longer current;
(ii) comparing the time remaining determined in (i) to an ephemeris data update time threshold; and
(iii) determining that the time remaining is less than the ephemeris data update time threshold.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the ephemeris data update time threshold is a time less than 6 hours.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein (a) further comprises, between (ii) and (iii), detecting that the secondary device is within communication range.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the secondary device obtains the updated ephemeris data from a navigation satellite.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the secondary device obtains the updated ephemeris data from an Earth-based organization serving ephemeris data.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the Earth-based organization is selected from the group consisting of: Mediatek, CSR, The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPS).

14. The method of claim 12 , wherein the secondary device obtains the updated ephemeris data from the Earth-based organization via a communication protocol selected from the group consisting of: 4G, 3G, LTE, GPRS, HSDPA, EV-DO, WiMax, and standards related to any of the foregoing.

15. The method of claim 1 , further comprising detecting a pattern of usage of the worn biometric monitoring device by a user, wherein (c) further includes obtaining X amount of days of ephemeris data, X is a number between 1 and 30, and X is determined from the detected pattern of usage.

16. A wearable biometric monitoring device, the wearable biometric monitoring device comprising:
communication circuitry, the communication circuitry configured to receive ephemeris data from a secondary device associated with the wearable biometric monitoring device via a wireless connection and output the ephemeris data to a controller; and
the controller comprising one or more processors and a memory, wherein the one or more processors, the memory, and the communication circuitry, are communicatively connected and the memory is configured to store ephemeris data and program instructions for controlling the one or more processors to:
(a) determine that the stored ephemeris data in the memory is not updated by:
(i) determining a time remaining before stored ephemeris data is no longer current;
(ii) comparing the time remaining determined in (i) to an ephemeris data update time threshold; and
(iii) determining that the time remaining is less than the ephemeris data update time threshold;

(b) determine that the wireless connection between the worn biometric monitoring device and a secondary device has a connection strength above a predetermined level; and
(c) obtain, responsive to (a) and (b), updated ephemeris data via the wireless connection from the secondary device and storing the updated ephemeris data in the memory, wherein the updated ephemeris data originated from a server configured to serve ephemeris data.

17. The wearable biometric monitoring device of claim 16 , wherein the wireless connection comprises a short-range, low-power communication protocol.

18. The wearable biometric monitoring device of claim 16 , further comprising program instructions for controlling the one or more processors to:
(d) calculate a global position of the wearable biometric monitoring device using the updated ephemeris data obtained in (c).

19. The wearable biometric monitoring device of claim 18 , further comprising a navigation data receiver, wherein the program instructions for calculating the global position in (d) comprise instructions for:
(i) determining orbital positions of navigation satellites according to the updated ephemeris data obtained in (c);
(ii) obtaining position fixing data via the navigation data receiver from the navigation satellites; and
(iii) calculating the global position of the wearable biometric monitoring device using the position fixing data obtained in (ii).

20. The wearable biometric monitoring device of claim 19 , wherein the program instructions for obtaining the updated ephemeris data in (c) comprise instructions for obtaining the updated ephemeris data associated with the navigation satellites that transmitted the position fixing data to the navigation data receiver.

21. The wearable biometric monitoring device of claim 16 , wherein the secondary device is a portable device.

22. The wearable biometric monitoring device of claim 17 , wherein the short-range, low-power communication protocol is selected from the group consisting of Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE), ANT, near field communication (NFC), ZigBee, IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15, Infrared Data Association (IrDA) protocols, and standards related to any of the foregoing.

23. The wearable biometric monitoring device of claim 16 , wherein the ephemeris data update time threshold is a time less than 6 hours.

24. The wearable biometric monitoring device of claim 16 , wherein the program instructions for determining that the worn biometric monitoring device does not have stored updated ephemeris data in (a)

Assignees

• Fitbit Inc

Inventors

• Park James
• Panther Heiko Gernot Albert
• Yuen Shelten Gee Jao

Classifications

• H04N23/661

  Transmitting camera control signals through networks, e.g. control via the Internet · CPC title

• H04N23/651

  for reducing power consumption by affecting camera operations, e.g. sleep mode, hibernation mode or power off of selective parts of the camera · CPC title

• G06F19/3418

  Physics · mapped topic

• H04W4/02

  Services making use of location information · CPC title

• Y02B60/50

  Cross-Sectional Technologies · mapped topic