Tracking Device Location via Community Relay
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users of tracking devices face challenges in locating their devices when their mobile device is not running the corresponding application, and if the device is lost or stolen, they need assistance from community members to recover it.
Innovation Solution
A central tracking system determines if the user's mobile device is within proximity of the tracking device and if the tracking application is running, generating notifications to the user if it's not, and leveraging community mobile devices to locate the device if it's beyond communication range or lost.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the user's mobile device is not running the tracking application, then the user cannot directly communicate with the tracking device, but the system can still locate the device through community members' mobile devices
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces community members' mobile devices as intermediaries to facilitate communication between the tracking device and the owner's mobile device. When the owner's device is not running the application, community devices act as mediators to receive signals from the tracking device and relay location information to the owner through the central server, thus resolving the contradiction between reliability and ease of operation.
2Reliability
If the tracking device is beyond communication range of the user's mobile device, then direct communication is impossible, but community mobile devices can still detect and report the tracking device's location
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal tracking network where any community member's mobile device can function as a detection node for tracking devices beyond the original owner's communication range. This multi-functional approach allows the same tracking system to serve both direct communication within range and indirect location tracking beyond range, resolving the contradiction between reliability and communication range.
3Loss of information
If the central tracking system continuously monitors application status and generates notifications, then users are kept informed of device status, but system complexity and notification overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a feedback mechanism where the central tracking system continuously monitors whether the tracking application is running on the user's mobile device and generates notifications when it detects the application is not running or when the device is lost. This feedback loop provides users with real-time information about their tracking device status while using relatively simple monitoring and notification logic in the central system, resolving the contradiction between information completeness and system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
A tracking system determines that a first device of an owner of a tracking device is not within a proximity of the tracking device, that a second device is within a proximity of the tracking device, and whether a tracking application is not running on the first device. Responsive to determining that the tracking application is not running on the first device, the tracking system generates a notification informing the owner that the tracking application is not running on the first device. Responsive to determining that a location of the second device within a proximity of the tracking device is more than a threshold distance from a last known location of the tracking device, the tracking system generates a another notification informing the owner that the tracking device may be lost. The tracking system provides one or both of the notifications to the first device for display to the owner.