Patent ID: 8905927
Filing Date: 2014-12-09
Classification: A61B,H04N

Abstract:
1. A system for providing a health monitoring service, comprising: a controllable consumer appliance; a hand-held, universal remote control device having a housing, a processing device, a transmitter coupled to the processing device, a user interface activatable to cause the processing device to initiate a transmission of commands to control functional operations of the controllable consumer appliance via use of the transmitter, a handling sensor coupled to the processing device for providing to the processing device a sensor signal in response to a detected handling of the hand-held, universal remote control by a user, and at least one biometric sensor arranged on the housing of the hand-held, universal remote control and coupled to the processing device for capturing biometric data from the user when the user grasps the housing of the hand-held, universal remote control and for providing the captured biometric data to the processing device with the processing device thereafter functioning to transmit to the controllable consumer appliance data indicative of the captured biometric data via use of the transmitter; and a centralized, health monitoring service center in communication with the controllable consumer appliance for receiving from the consumer appliance data indicative of the captured biometric data; wherein the processing device has associated programming that is activated when the handling sensor generates the sensor signal in response to a detected handling of the hand-held, universal remote control by the user whereupon the activated programming functions to cause the processing device to enable the capturing of biometric data by the at least one biometric sensor when a predetermined amount of time has elapsed since a previous capturing of biometric data with one or more of the controllable consumer appliance, the hand-held, universal remote control, and the centralized, health monitoring service center, then functioning to evaluate the captured biometric data to determine a health condition of the user.