GB2544257A

GB2544257A - Greeting gesture device

Info

Publication number: GB2544257A
Application number: GB1516631.7A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Philip Pisani Justin; Robert Gordon Simon
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2015-09-19
Filing date: 2015-09-19
Publication date: 2017-05-17
Also published as: GB201516631D0

Abstract

A gesture sensing device which can detect breathing or blowing actions and translate them into messages to send to remote users has a sensor 6, a microprocessor 4 and a wired or wireless communication means 3. Upon detecting a breath, the device may transmit the data to another device, such as a smartphone, or another system like this one. The data sent may then be converted into an audio, text or visual message to be sent again to another device. The message may be editable/personalised before sending. Further, the sensor 6 may only respond to a specific sound pattern. The invention is intended to allow the sending of gestures, such as blowing a kiss. The device may also have a temperature sensor and/or an accelerometer. The unit may also have a receiving mechanism to alert the user when a message has been sent, as the smartphone, for instance, may be programmed to send this information back to the device.

Description

Greeting Gesture Detection Device

Description

Wearable personal computing devices are now commonplace. Such devices can be used for a variety of applications including monitoring physiological parameters such as activity (e.g. Misfit Inc, USA Shine™). In addition these devices can communicate with personal devices such as smart phones (Apple Inc, USA, iPhone™) for a variety of applications including access to the mobile and fixed internet, sharing sensed data and the transfer of messages to other users.

Transfer of messages can be initiated by the wearable sensor, for example triggered by a physical motion such as making a specific hand movement or by pressing a button or screen on the sensor. A drawback of this is other common forms of greeting gesture cannot be used, such as the greeting of blowing a kiss using a hand and breathing action.

This invention proposes a personal sensing device which includes a sensor system to detect such action, interpret it and trigger a communication action to occur.

Preferred Embodiment

The invention is now described with reference to the following figures:

Figure 1 shows how the sensor may measure the parameters and communicate with an external communications device.

Figure 2 shows how the gesture may be transferred from the sensor device to a remote user.

Referring to Figure 1, the personal sensor device is worn or carried by the user as they undertake activities of daily living and contains a microprocessor [4] and wireless transceiver [3]. Those skilled in the art will be aware that these functions may be achieved using a single electronic component such as wireless System on Chip (Texas Instruments, USA). The device may have sensors to measure parameters such as acceleration forces using an accelerometer [2] and environmental parameters like temperature [1]. The unit may be powered by a battery [5] such as a generic CR2032 coin cell (Duracell Inc, USA).

The sensor contains a breath detector [6], which may be achieved using a piezo electric audio microphone and suitable processing electronics. The output of the detection may be digitised by the microprocessor [4] directly, or additionally may be processed by an envelope detection circuit [7] which tracks the amplitude of the waveform provided by [6] and then feeds it into the microprocessor [4]. The user may be provided alerts by the sensor using a miniature vibration motor [8] commonly used in mobile phones.

The user is able to blow across the breath detector [6], for example by placing the breath detector in a housing with a suitable small interconnecting hole from the exterior of the housing to the sensing element in the breath detector. Those skilled in the art will be aware such electro mechanical schemes are commonly used to allow users speech waves to be captured by mobile phones.

The act of blowing across the sensor will cause a large deviation in the breath detection [6] and this signal can be processed and measured by the microprocessor alongside the secondary signal [7] to detect the breath.

The microprocessor [4] can then send a message recording this event via its wireless transceiver [3],

Referring to figure 2, the sensor unit [9] message can be transferred to a smart phone [10] which has an application which determines an appropriate audio, textual or pictorial image to send via its communication network [13], Remote smart phone(s) [11] containing a similar software application may receive these messages and display them locally. In addition for remote users who also have a sensor unit [12], the smart phone [11] can optionally send a message to the unit [12] to alert the user that a message has been sent to them.

In certain configurations, sensor unit [9] may also be able to perform the same gesture transfer directly to the remote sensor unit [12] using a wireless communications technology (e.g.: Bluetooth®).

Claims

Claims We claim:-

1. A personal sensor system equipped with: a. a breath and/or blowing sensor b. a microprocessor c. a wired or wireless communications means.

2. A system as defined in claim 1, where the sensor system can detect a breath or blowing action and trigger a data message to be sent to a predefined recipient.

3. A system as defined in 2 where the predefined recipient is one or more personal sensor systems connected wirelessly.

4. A system as defined in 2 where the predefined recipient is a communication device with the means to convert the data message into audio, textual or visual messages and transfer that message to one or more predefined users.

5. A system as defined in 4, where the sent message may be personalised by the user.

6. A system as defined in 1 where the sensed action may be a specific sound pattern.