Optical Head-Mounted Display Customer Recognition
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Solution Overview
Problem
Business associates in environments like retail stores and banking centers lack efficient means to identify established customers automatically and access relevant customer information without requiring customer action, leading to inefficient service delivery.
Innovation Solution
A wearable computing device with an Optical Head-Mounted Display (OHMD) equipped with a customer recognition and identification module that captures facial images or receives electronic communications from mobile devices to identify established customers, providing real-time customer identifiers and profile information within the OHMD.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If business associates manually access computer systems to look up customer profiles, then customer information can be retrieved, but productivity decreases and time is lost due to adherence to other job responsibilities
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables automatic customer identification and information retrieval without requiring manual intervention from associates. The facial recognition system automatically detects customers, retrieves their profiles from the database, and presents relevant information through the head-mounted display, allowing the system to serve itself rather than requiring human operators to manually query databases.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual mechanical operations (physically accessing computers, typing queries, navigating databases) with automated optical and electronic systems. The head-mounted display with facial recognition capabilities substitutes for manual computer access, using image processing and database querying algorithms to automatically retrieve customer information and present it visually to the associate.
2Measurement precision
If customers present loyalty cards or authentication documents, then customer identification is achieved, but the process requires customer action and is performed only at transaction time
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs customer identification actions before the actual transaction occurs. By continuously capturing facial images and comparing them against the database of established customers, the system proactively identifies customers as they enter the business environment, rather than waiting for customers to present identification documents at the point of transaction.
Solution Approach 2:
The system automatically performs customer recognition without requiring any action from the customers themselves. The facial recognition system operates autonomously, capturing images, comparing them to stored customer profiles, and identifying established customers without needing customers to present cards or documents.
3Ease of operation
If associates visually recognize customers from previous encounters, then customer identification is possible, but this relies on human memory and is unreliable for new or infrequent customers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces human visual recognition and memory-based identification with an automated optical recognition system. The head-mounted display captures facial images and uses computer vision algorithms to compare them against a database of stored customer faces, providing objective, reliable identification that does not depend on human memory or visual recall.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates and maintains a digital copy (facial image) of each established customer in a database. Instead of relying on human memory, the system stores visual copies of customer faces and uses image processing to match current images against these stored copies, enabling accurate and consistent customer identification.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems, apparatus, and computer program products are provided for implementing a wearable computing device having an Optical Head-Mounted Display (OHMD) to automatically determine which individuals within a business environment, such as a retail store, banking center or the like, are established customers. Such a determination of established customer status is conducted without requiring any action on behalf of the individuals/customers currently located within the business environment and can be accomplished when the established customer enters the business location or shortly thereafter. Once established customers are identified, customer indicators are provided within the view of the OHMD, so that a business associate/employee can readily identity which individual within their field of view are established customers.