Patent Issued for Home device sensing (USPTO 11379926): Allstate Insurance Company

2022 JUL 25 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- From Alexandria, Virginia, NewsRx journalists report that a patent by the inventors Krug, David J. (Arlington Heights, IL, US), Safford, Douglas (St. Charles, IL, US), Veith, David G. (Oswego, IL, US), filed on January 28, 2021, was published online on July 5, 2022.

The patent’s assignee for patent number 11379926 is Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

News editors obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “People are often looking for ways to protect their homes. People buy insurance for exactly that reason-to protect against unforeseen risks. However, although insurance will pay for damage to your home, vehicle, etc. after it occurs, being aware of a potential risk before damage occurs may aid in reducing inconvenience and costs. Further, even if a person is aware of a potential risk, failure, etc., the person may not have enough information to determine how to fix the issue or may not fully comprehend the potential severity of the issue.”

As a supplement to the background information on this patent, NewsRx correspondents also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “The following presents a simplified summary in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the disclosure. The summary is not an extensive overview of the disclosure. It is neither intended to identify key or critical elements of the disclosure nor to delineate the scope of the disclosure. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the disclosure in a simplified form as a prelude to the description below.

“Aspects of the disclosure relate to systems, methods, apparatuses and computer-readable media for receiving data from one or more sensors associated with one or more home devices, such as appliances, home systems, etc. The data may be used to determine whether operation of the home device is within an acceptable range. If not, the user associated with the home device may receive an alert identifying a potential issue. One or more potential modifications to improve the home device may be identified and transmitted to the user. In some examples, an insurance incentive to implement the recommended modifications may also be transmitted to the user.

“Other features and advantages of the disclosure will be apparent from the additional description provided herein.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A system, comprising: a home device; a sensing device in communication with the home device and integrated into the home device, the sensing device being configured to monitor operation of the home device; a processing unit comprising a processor; and a memory unit communicatively coupled to the processing unit and storing computer-executable instructions, which when executed by the processing unit, cause the system to: receive, via a wireless transmission, data from the sensing device; process, in real-time, the received data to determine characteristic data of the home device in communication with the sensing device; compare the determined characteristic data to characteristic data for devices within a predefined distance of the home device to determine whether the characteristic data is within a predetermined threshold for a locality; responsive to determining that the characteristic data is within the predetermined threshold for the locality, identify a first insurance incentive to provide to a user based on the characteristic data being within the predetermined threshold; responsive to determining that the characteristic data is outside of the predetermined threshold for the locality: identify a proposed modification to the home device; identify a second insurance incentive different from the first insurance incentive, to implement the identified proposed modification to the home device; generate a user interface including an alert comprising the proposed modification and the second insurance incentive; and transmit, to a user computing device, the generated user interface.

“2. The system of claim 1, wherein the home device is a sump pump.

“3. The system of claim 1, wherein the received data from the sensing device includes a plurality of signals received from a plurality of devices in communication with the home device.

“4. The system of claim 3, wherein each device of the plurality of devices is configured to sense a different characteristic of the home device.

“5. The system of claim 1, further including instructions that, when executed, cause the system to: responsive to determining that the characteristic data is within the predetermined threshold for the locality, store the characteristic data for future use, wherein the future use of the stored characteristic data includes comparing the characteristic data to characteristic data determined at a second time and, based on the comparison, providing a third insurance incentive to the user to make an alternate modification to the home device.

“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the alert further includes identification of the home device.

“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the predefined distance includes a predefined radius.

“8. A system, comprising: a first sensing device configured to sense a first characteristic of a first home device; a second sensing device configured to sense a second characteristic of the first home device, the second characteristic being different from the first characteristic; at least one computing device in communication with the first sensing device and the second sensing device and configured to receive data from the first sensing device and the second sensing device, the at least one computing device including: a processing unit comprising a processor; and a memory unit communicatively coupled to the processor and storing computer-executable instructions, which when executed by the processing unit, cause the system to: receive, from the first sensing device and the second sensing device and via a wireless transmission, data transmitted by the first sensing device and the second sensing device; process the received data to determine first characteristic data from the first sensing device and second characteristic data from the second sensing device; compare the first characteristic data and second characteristic data to historical data of other devices to determine whether at least one of the first characteristic data and the second characteristic data is outside of a threshold range of the historical data; and responsive to determining, based on the comparison, that the at least one of the first characteristic data and the second characteristic data is outside of a threshold range of the historical data: identify a modification for the first home device to reduce risk of failure of the first home device; identify a first insurance incentive to transmit to a first user to implement the identified modification; generate a user interface including an alert comprising the modification and the first insurance incentive; transmit, to a computing device of the first user, the generated user interface; and responsive to determining, based on the comparison, that the at least one of the first characteristic data and the second characteristic data is within the threshold range of the historical data, identifying a second insurance incentive, different from the first insurance incentive, to provide to the first user and transmitting the second insurance incentive to the computing device of the first user.

“9. The system of claim 8, wherein the first sensing device is integrated into the first home device.

“10. The system of claim 8, wherein the first characteristic is power consumption and the second characteristic is water level.

“11. The system of claim 8, further including a second home device having a least a third sensor configured to sense a third characteristic, the second home device being a backup of the first home device and the at least one computing device being in communication with the second home device.

“12. The system of claim 11, wherein the third characteristic is power consumption and wherein third characteristic data is received from the third sensor and the second insurance incentive is a reduced premium, and the modification is replacement of the first home device.

“13. The system of claim 8, wherein the first home device is associated with the first user and wherein the memory unit further includes instructions, that when executed by the processing unit, cause the system to: compare the first characteristic data and second characteristic data with data received from a second home device of at least a second user different from the first user, the second home device being in communication with the at least one computing device.

“14. The system of claim 13, wherein the second home device of the at least a second user is within a predefined distance of the first home device of the first user.

“15. The system of claim 14, further including instructions, that when executed by the processing unit, cause the system to: determine an insurance rate for the first user and the second user based on the comparison.

“16. A method, comprising: receiving, by a computing device, via a wireless transmission and from a sensing device in communication with a home device, characteristic data of the home device; comparing, by the computing device, the received characteristic data to characteristic data for devices within a predefined distance of the home device to determine, in real-time and by the computing device, whether the characteristic data is within a predetermined threshold for a locality; if it is determined that the characteristic data is within the predetermined threshold for the locality, identifying a first insurance incentive to provide to a user associated with the home device; and if it is determined that the characteristic data is outside of the predetermined threshold for the locality: identifying, by the computing device a proposed modification to the home device to reduce risk of failure of the home device; identifying a second insurance incentive, different from the first insurance incentive to implement the proposed modification to the home device; generating a user interface including an alert comprising the proposed modification and the second insurance incentive; and transmitting the user interface to a computing device of a user.

“17. The method of claim 16, wherein the home device is a sump pump.

“18. The method of claim 16, further including storing the characteristic data for future use if it is determined that the characteristic data is within the predetermined threshold for the locality.

“19. The method of claim 18, wherein the future use of the stored characteristic data includes comparing the characteristic data to characteristic data determined at a second time and, based on the comparison, providing a third insurance incentive to the user to make an alternate modification to the home device.

“20. The method of claim 16, wherein the alert further includes identification of the home device.”

For additional information on this patent, see: Krug, David J. Home device sensing. U.S. Patent Number 11379926, filed January 28, 2021, and published online on July 5, 2022. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11379926.PN.&OS=PN/11379926RS=PN/11379926

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