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US 9,521,525 B2Granted
Method and apparatus for detecting a left-behind phone
AssigneeFord Global Technologies, LLC
InventorsJialiang Le, Manoharprasad K. Rao, Kwaku O. Prakah-Asante
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system includes a vehicle computing processor. The processor is configured to, through wireless communication with a phone, and after determining that a vehicle engine is not running, request and receive motion sensor data from the phone. The processor is further configured to determine if a phone is moving with a driver based on the motion sensor data. Also, the processor is configured to alert the driver if the phone is not moving with the driver.
Claims2
A system comprising:
- a processor configured to:
- save indicia of a phone-present state, upon pairing of a phone with a vehicle, indicating that the phone was paired with the vehicle during a journey;
- scan for a wireless signal corresponding to the phone associated with the saved indicia upon vehicle power-up, responsive to a determination that the vehicle is at a home location;
- alert a vehicle occupant that the phone may be left at home if the scan results in not-finding the wireless signal.
1 more element
A computer-implemented method comprising:
- saving indicia of a phone-present state, via a vehicle computer, upon pairing of a phone with a vehicle, indicating that the phone was paired with the vehicle during a journey;
- scanning for a wireless signal corresponding to the phone associated with the saved indicia upon vehicle power-up, responsive to a determination that the vehicle is at a home location:
- alerting a vehicle occupant that the phone may be left at home if the scan results in not-finding the wireless signal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.