Security System Geolocation-Based Alert Routing
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing security systems face challenges in effectively contacting homeowners or their designated individuals, especially when they are on vacation or unavailable, in response to security alerts, as traditional methods may not ensure timely notification and response to urgent events.
Innovation Solution
A security system that utilizes social networking sites to create a friends list, determines the geographical location of listed individuals, and sends alarm messages to the closest person, ensuring timely notification and response to security events within a secured area.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional alarm notification methods are used, then the system structure remains simple, but the ability to contact the owner or designee timely is compromised when they are unavailable
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-establishes a network of friends and their contact information before an alarm event occurs. When an alarm is triggered, the system automatically queries the social networking site for the nearest available friend without requiring real-time manual intervention, thus improving notification reliability while maintaining manageable system complexity through advance preparation
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a social networking site as an intermediary to store and provide access to friend contact information and location data. This mediator enables the system to reliably contact available individuals without directly managing complex contact databases, resolving the contradiction between notification reliability and system complexity
2Reliability
If the system contacts multiple people sequentially, then the chance of reaching someone increases, but the response time increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-collecting and storing location information of all friends on the social networking site before an alarm occurs. Upon alarm, it immediately calculates distances and identifies the nearest friend without sequential contact attempts, thereby achieving high contact success rate while minimizing notification delay
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically determines the nearest friend based on real-time location data from the social networking site rather than using a fixed contact list. This dynamic approach ensures the fastest possible notification while maintaining high reliability by adaptively selecting the most appropriate contact based on current conditions
3Loss of time
If the system uses social networking sites to determine geolocation and select the nearest friend, then the response time is reduced, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent leverages the social networking site as an intermediary that already maintains user location data and profile information. The security system queries this existing infrastructure rather than building its own location tracking system, thus achieving rapid notification by utilizing pre-existing data structures without proportionally increasing system complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses the social networking site for multiple functions: storing friend contacts, obtaining location data, and determining proximity. This multi-functional use of a single platform reduces overall system complexity while enabling fast notification responses through centralized data access
Data Source
AI summary
A method and apparatus are provided that incorporate the steps of creating a friends list through a social networking site, a security system detecting an event within a secured area of the security system, the security system selecting at least one friend of the friends list based upon a relative geolocation of the at least one friend with respect to the secured area, and the security system sending an alert to the at least one friend notifying the at least one friend of the event.