Patent Issued for Systems and methods for confirming property services (USPTO 11908297): United Services Automobile Association
2024 MAR 13 (NewsRx) -- By a
The patent’s inventors are Amann, Manfred (
This patent was filed on
From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “The present disclosure relates generally to confirmation of services performed on or inside a property. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to using data to inform and/or automate decisions related to the confirmation of services that were performed at or inside the property.
“A property owner and/or manager may hire a service person to perform a variety of services on property such as general maintenance, including landscaping, repairs, cleaning, and the like. Confirming that the services are completed and handling the payment can be inefficient as the property owner may not be able to, for example, properly confirm that the service is completed in a timely manner. It is now recognized that improved systems and methods for confirming services may improve the efficiency in which the services may be performed.
“This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present techniques, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.”
Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “One or more specific embodiments will be described below. In an effort to provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all features of an actual implementation are described in the specification. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve the developers’ specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.
“When introducing elements of various embodiments of the present disclosure, the articles “a,” “an,” and “the” are intended to mean that there are one or more of the elements. The terms “comprising,” “including,” and “having” are intended to be inclusive and mean that there may be additional elements other than the listed elements. Additionally, it should be understood that references to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” of the present disclosure are not intended to be interpreted as excluding the existence of additional embodiments that also incorporate the recited features.
“As discussed above, a user (e.g., a property owner and/or manager) may hire a service person to perform a variety of services on or within their properties, such as general maintenance, repairs, cleaning, activities (e.g., walking and feeding pets, taking out trash, and the like), and so forth. In some instances, it can be difficult for the user to properly oversee that the service has been completed and/or completed in a timely manner. For example, the user may not be present at the property when the service person arrives or may not be able to monitor the work of the service person as they perform the service. Additionally, service confirmation may be inefficient for service persons as inspection and/or payment by the user and/or individuals may require that each party find overlap between their respective schedules. As such, confirming that services are performed can be an inefficient process for both the property owner and the service person. Accordingly, the present disclosure is directed to a service confirmation system that improves the efficiency of confirming and handling service transactions with minimal interaction between users and service persons.
“By way of introduction, FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system 10 that includes a service confirmation system 12, one or more databases 14, a network 16, a computing device 18, a mobile computing device 20, sensors 22, smart home devices 24, and the like. In general, the service confirmation system 12 may confirm that services are performed, reject an indication that services were performed, handle payments, and/or alert a user of various circumstances that may arise during a service being performed on one or more properties 26, such as commercial buildings, residential buildings, plots of land, and the like. Although the service confirmation system 12 is illustrated as being coupled to the various components depicted in FIG. 1, it should be noted that the service confirmation system 12 may be communicatively coupled to a variety of data sources that may assist the service confirmation system 12 in performing the embodiments described herein. The service confirmation system 12 may include any suitable computer device, such as a general-purpose personal computer, a laptop computer, a tablet computer, a mobile computer, a smart phone device, a server, a cloud-computing system, and the like that is configured in accordance with present embodiments. Additional details with regard to example components that may be part of the service confirmation system 12 is described below with reference to FIG. 2.
“The computing device 18 is generally an electronic device worn, held, or associated with the property owner that may be used to send and receive data and/or receive inputs from the property owner. For example, the computing device 18 may be a personal computer, laptop computer, tablet computer, smart phone, and so. Similarly, the mobile computing device 20 is an electronic device worn, held, or associated with the service person 21 that may be used to send and receive data. For example, the mobile computing device 20 may be a personal computer, laptop computer, tablet computer, smart phone, and so.”
The claims supplied by the inventors are:
“1. A system, comprising: a processor; a tangible, non-transitory, computer readable medium, comprising instructions that cause the processor to perform operations comprising: receiving a first indication indicative of a person arriving at a location; determining whether the first indication corresponds to a scheduled service associated with the location; transmitting a control signal that causes one or more sensors to acquire activity data in response to determining the first indication corresponds to the scheduled service; receiving the activity data associated with the scheduled service subsequent to transmitting the control signal; receiving a second indication indicative that the person has completed the scheduled service; determining whether the scheduled service is completed based at least in part on the activity data and the second indication; and transmitting a service confirmation to a computing device associated with a property owner of the location in response to determining that the scheduled service is completed.
“2. The system of claim 1, comprising one or more sensors configured to acquire the first indication, the activity data, the second indication, or any combination thereof.
“3. The system of claim 1, wherein determining whether the first indication corresponds to the scheduled service comprises comparing an expected arrival time to a time associated with the first indication.
“4. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more sensors comprise audio sensors, and wherein determining whether the schedule service is completed based at least in part on the activity data is based at least in part on a comparison between the activity data comprising audio data acquired by the audio sensors and a sound profile associated with the scheduled service.
“5. The system of claim 1, wherein determining whether the first indication corresponds to the scheduled service associated with the location comprises determining whether the person is associated with the scheduled service.
“6. The system of claim 1, wherein the operations comprise transmitting a signal to one or more devices disposed within the location to enable access of the person in response to determining that the first indication corresponds to the scheduled service.
“7. The system of claim 1, wherein the activity data comprises power data, time data, audio data, image data, video data, or any combination thereof.
“8. A tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising: receiving a first indication indicative of a person arriving at a location associated with a scheduled service; determining whether the first indication corresponds to the scheduled service; transmitting a control signal that causes one or more sensors associated with the location to acquire activity data in response to determining the first indication corresponds to the scheduled service; receiving the activity data associated with the scheduled service subsequent to transmitting the control signal; receiving a second indication that the person has completed the scheduled service; determining that the activity data is indicative that the person has completed the scheduled service based on the second indication; and transmitting a service confirmation to a second computing device associated with a property owner of the location in response to determining that the scheduled service is completed.
“9. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the first indication comprises a detected logo within image data acquired by the one or more sensors.
“10. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the operations comprise: transmitting an additional control signal to a door controller whereby, in response to receiving the additional control signal, the door controller unlocks a door.
“11. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the activity data comprises audio data; and wherein determining that the activity data is indicative that the person has completed the scheduled service comprises determining that the audio data is below a threshold.
“12. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the operations comprise: determining that an identity of the person corresponds to an identity of a service person associated with the scheduled service; and transmitting a signal to one or more devices disposed within the location to enable access of the person in response to determining that the identity of the person corresponds to the identity of the servicer person associated with the scheduled service.
“13. The tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable medium of claim 8, wherein the one or more sensors comprise image sensors, and wherein the operations comprise: transmitting an additional control signal to cause the one or more image sensors to receive image data in response to receiving the first indication of the person arriving for the scheduled service; receiving the image data; and determining that the image data corresponds with the scheduled service based on a comparison of the image data and a stored reference image.
“14. A method, comprising: receiving, via a processor, a first indication indicative of presence of a person arriving at a location associated with a scheduled service; determining, via the processor, whether the first indication corresponds to the scheduled service; transmitting, via the processor, a control signal that causes one or more sensors within the location to acquire activity data in response to determining that the first indication corresponds to the scheduled service; receiving, via the processor, the activity data measured by one or more sensors within the location subsequent to transmitting the control signal; receiving a second indication that the person has completed the scheduled service; determining, via the processor, that the activity data is indicative that the person has completed the scheduled service within the location based on the second indication; and transmitting, via the processor, a service confirmation to a computing device associated with a property owner of the location in response to determining that the scheduled service is completed within the location.
“15. The method of claim 14, comprising transmitting, via the processor, an additional control signal to one or more devices disposed located within a proximity of the location to enable access of the person in response to determining that the first indication corresponds to the scheduled service.
“16. The method of claim 14, wherein the indication comprises image data associated with the person, a service company associated with the person, or both; and wherein determining, via the processor, whether the first indication corresponds to the scheduled service comprises comparing the image data to reference image data stored in a database accessible by the processor.
“17. The method of claim 14, comprising transmitting, via the processor, a control signal that causes one or more devices to generate an alert indicative of an area that is not associated with the scheduled service.”
For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Amann, Manfred. Systems and methods for confirming property services.
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