Child seat monitoring system for a vehicle and associated methods

A method for operating a child seat monitoring system for a vehicle with a child seat for carrying a child, comprising:

• plugging an on-board diagnostics (OBD) dongle into an OBD port within the vehicle, the OBD dongle comprising a first Bluetooth module and a first thermistor configured to measure temperature within the vehicle;
• securing a child safety clip to the child seat, the child safety clip having a device identification (ID) associated therewith, and comprising a second Bluetooth module paired with the first Bluetooth module, and a second thermistor configured to measure the temperature within the vehicle;
• operating a parent mobile phone to be carried by an occupant of the vehicle, the parent mobile phone comprising a third Bluetooth module paired with the first and second Bluetooth modules and configured to periodically receive measured temperature values from the first and second thermistors, and a transceiver configured to periodically transmit status messages that include the received measured temperature values, the device ID and a location of the parent mobile phone;
• and
• providing a backend server configured to periodically receive from the parent mobile phone the status messages, the backend server comprising a database, a processor and a transceiver, and operating the backend server to perform the following steps:
• storing in the database device IDs, alert generation rules associated with each device ID, and a contact list associated with each device ID,
• operating the processor to perform the following:
• analyze the received status messages based on the alert generation rules,
• generate an alert in response to at least one of the following:
• one of the measured temperature values in the status messages exceeds a threshold, and
• the parent mobile phone is no longer in proximity to the child safety clip in order to periodically receive the measured temperature values from the first and second thermistors while the child remains in the child seat, and
• operating the transceiver to transmit the alert to mobile phones identified in the contact list.