Magic Leap Patent | Augmented reality devices, systems and methods for purchasing
Publication Number: 20250209507
Publication Date: 2025-06-26
Assignee: Magic Leap
Abstract
Disclosed herein is an augmented reality (AR) system that provides information about purchasing alternatives to a user who is about to purchase an item or product (e.g., a target product) in a physical retail location. In some variations, offers to purchase the product and/or an alternative product are provided by the merchant and/or competitors via the AR system. An offer negotiation server (ONS) aggregates offer data provided various external parties (EPs) and displays these offers to the user as the user is considering the purchase of a target product. In some variations, an AR system may be configured to facilitate the process of purchasing items at a retail location.
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Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/481,218 filed Sep. 21, 2021, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/192,724 filed Jun. 24, 2016, now U.S. Pat. No. 11,164,227 and claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/184,150 filed Jun. 24, 2015 and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/195,184 filed Jul. 21, 2015, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
BACKGROUND
Increasingly, consumers purchase goods and services by using digital devices and technology. Various technological platforms have been developed to assist a consumer in comparing the features and prices of goods and services. Some applications assist a consumer in selecting a product that suits their needs, while other applications provide price comparisons between various merchants and vendors. For purchases made over the internet, a consumer has ready access to a great deal of product, price and vendor information, all of which can be pulled up on the computer display before and during the purchase.
However, for purchases made at a physical retail location, such information is not as easily accessible without the user diverting their attention from the product at hand to query their smart phone (or other such portable electronic device) to access information about the product that is not available at the retail location. In many cases, the consumer would prefer to obtain such information without drawing the attention of a sales person. Furthermore, the small display of a smart phone or other portable device tends to limit the amount of information a consumer is able to reference in a brief period of time.
Accordingly, it may be desirable to integrate the ease of information acquisition over the internet with the shopping experience at a physical retail location to help a consumer make decisions about purchasing a particular product from a particular merchant. It may also be desirable to facilitate the purchase process of items selected by a consumer at a retail location.
BRIEF SUMMARY
Disclosed herein are augmented reality (AR) devices, systems and methods that facilitate the purchase of one or more items or products at a retail location. An AR system may comprise a wearable AR device that is configured to capture information associated with an item for sale in a retail location or store. The wearable AR device (ARD) may be configured to monitor the movement and/or location of the particular item as the shopper moves around the store. When one or more predetermined criteria are met, the item may be designated as “carried” or “purchased.” For example, when the item is detected to be at a location different from its original location but within the store perimeter, it may be designated as “carried”. When the user selects a purchase option on the AR device while viewing or carrying the item, information associated with the item may be relayed to a remote server that may process the purchase transaction. At the completion of the purchase transaction, the item may be designated as “purchased.” The AR systems and methods disclosed herein may facilitate the purchase of an item (e.g., the transfer of funds from the user to the merchant in exchange for one or more items selected by the user at the retail location) by allowing the purchase transaction to occur between a user's ARD and a server, without requiring the user to queue at a check-out counter or interact with a sales associate. In some variations, a user's ARD may maintain a database that stores information about the items that are carried or purchased by the user, and the information in the database may be used to prompt the user to pay for unpurchased items carried by the user prior to leaving the retail location. An AR system may optionally provide information about purchasing alternatives to a shopper who is about to purchase an item or product (hereafter “the target”) in a physical retail location. Information about purchasing alternatives may be provided by the merchant and/or competitors to that merchant. Information provided by the merchant may include recommendations for a similar product that better suits the needs of the shopper and/or related or correlated products that are associated with the target, where the recommended products are sold by the merchant. The recommended products may be sold at the physical retail location, and/or on the merchant's website. They may include incentives to purchase from the retailer based on time, location, inventory, or facts about that particular customer.
One variation of a system for presenting purchase offers to a user may comprise an augmented reality (AR) device configured to identify a target product being considered by a user for purchase and to identify the price of the target product at a retail location, and a remote server. The AR device may have wireless capability and may be in wireless communication with the remote server. The remote server may have a database of computer-executable instruction sets, where each instruction set may be specific to a different product. The remote server may be configured to retrieve from the database a target product-specific instruction set based on target product identification data and target product price transmitted by the augmented reality device, where the target product-specific instruction set may comprise an alternate product and an alternate product offer price. The remote server may also execute the target product-specific instruction set to compare the target product price and the alternate product offer price, and generate a purchase offer data structure if the alternate product offer price is less than the target product price, where the offer data structure may comprise the alternate product offer price. The remote server may also be configured to transmit the purchase offer data structure to the AR device. In some variations, the alternate product may be available at a local merchant, and/or available online by the same merchant as a merchant at the retail location, and/or available online by a different merchant from a merchant at the retail location. Optionally, the price of the target product may be adjusted based on alternate product offer price. For example, the price of the target product may be reduced if the user agrees to purchase the target product before they depart the retail location.
One variation of a method of presenting purchase offers to a user may comprise identifying, using an augmented reality (AR) device, a target product that is being considered for purchase by a user, transmitting target product data from the augmented reality device to a remote server, where target product data may comprise target product identification data and target product price, and executing a computer-implemented method on the remote server to generate a purchase offer. In some variations, the computer-implemented method may comprise identifying, using the product identification data, a computer-executable instruction set specific to the target product, executing the product-specific computer-executable instruction set to generate a purchase offer data structure having an alternate product and an alternate product offer price, comparing the target product price and the alternate product offer price, and transmitting the purchase offer data structure to the augmented reality device if the alternate product offer price is less than the target product price. The method may also comprise displaying the purchase offer from the remote server to the user via the AR device. Displaying the purchase offer to the user may comprise displaying the alternate product offer price to the user. The target product data may further comprise the geographic location of the target product, and optionally, the geographic location may be represented by GPS coordinates. In some variations, identifying the target product using the AR device may comprise detecting that the user is interested in the target product. For example, the AR device may determine, based on the direction of the user's head as measured by a motion sensor or orientation sensor and/or eye-tracking sensors, that the user is looking at a target product (e.g., the duration of user gaze on one product is relatively longer than the gaze on other products). Alternatively or additionally, image sensors on the AR device may detect that the user has physically engaged with the target product, for example, by grasping or holding it in the field-of-view of the AR device image sensors. The AR device may be configured to do this by acquiring, using an image sensor of the AR device, an image of the user and executing instructions stored on computer-readable media of the augmented reality device that recognizes visual features in the image that indicate close proximity between the target product and the user. Target product data may comprise product category data. In some variations, the alternate product may be the same as the target product and/or may be in the same product category as the target product. Displaying the purchase offer may comprise displaying a graphic representing the alternate product and the alternate product offer price. A method for presenting purchase offers to a user may also comprise transmitting a signal from the AR device to the remote server indicating whether the user has accepted the purchase offer.
In some variations, a remote server may comprise a database of a plurality of computer-executable instruction sets, where each computer-executable instruction set may be specific to a different product, and the database may be stored in non-volatile computer-readable medium. One or more of the plurality of the product-specific computer-executable instruction sets may have been transmitted to the remote server from a second remote server. In some variations, the second remote server is controlled by a merchant. In some variations, the method may further comprise transmitting offer decision data from the AR device to the remote server indicating whether the user has accepted the purchase offer. Optionally, the method may also comprise generating a notification data structure, which may be transmitted from the remote server to the second remote server, where the notification data structure comprises offer decision data. Optionally, the notification data structure may further comprise user-identification data, such as user payment data.
Another variations of a method of presenting purchase offers to a user may comprise identifying, using an augmented reality (AR) device, a target product that is being considered for purchase by a user, transmitting target product data from the augmented reality device to a remote server, wherein target product data comprises target product identification data and target product price, and executing a computer-implemented method on the remote server to generate a purchase offer. In some variations, the computer-implemented method may comprise identifying, using the product identification data, a purchase offer data structure having an alternate product and an alternate product offer price, comparing the target product price and the alternate product offer price, transmitting the purchase offer data structure to the augmented reality device if the alternate product offer price is less than the target product price, and displaying the purchase offer from the remote server to the user via the augmented reality device.
Also described herein is a system for purchasing an item, the system comprising a wearable augmented reality device (ARD) having wireless communication capability and a control server in wireless communication with the ARD. The ARD may comprise a proximity detector, a motion detector, a position detector, and a computation component in communication with the proximity detector, motion detector and position detector, where the computation component may be configured to determine whether a wearer is in possession of an item using data from the proximity detector and the motion detector and to generate and transmit a signal to the control server, where the signal may indicate the identity of the item and whether the wearer is in possession of the item. The proximity detector may comprise at least one of a RFID reader, a camera, and a scanner. The motion detector may comprise a location estimator configured to detect a change of location of the user device. The position detector may comprise a global positioning system or a wireless based location determining system. The signal may indicate that the wearer is in possession of the item if the presence of the item is detected by the proximity detector while the wearer is determined to be moving by the motion detector or at a different location from an original location of the item by the position detector. The control server may generate and transmit a purchase signal to the ARD in order to prompt the wearer to purchase the item. In some variations, the proximity detector may comprise a directional antenna RFID reading device. The control server may store user location data, item identification data and item location data from the ARD into a database of a memory of the control server. In some variations, the control server may generate an item data structure in response to the ARD signal, where the item data structure may include an item identification code, a URL, carry status and purchase status of the item, where the item data structure may be stored into a database.
Another variation of a system may comprise a shopper device configured to track one or more items being carried by a user, a server connected to the shopper device and configured to receive status information of the one or more items, checkout device configured to detect the one or more items and request the status information of the one or more items from the server, and an employee device configured to receive an alert from the checkout device when the status of at least one item indicates that the item has not been purchased. The server may be configured to complete a purchase of an item when the received status information of the item indicates the item is to be purchased. Some systems may comprise a payment system configured to provide payment information to the server to facilitate the purchase of the item. The server may be configured to complete a purchase of an item in response to a message received from the checkout device. In some variations, the employee device may be configured to display a message indicating that at least one item has not been purchased. The checkout device may be located at an entrance of a store or a checkout area of the store. The shopper device may be configured to determining the status information of the one or more items.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1A is a block diagram that represents the modules of an augmented reality system involved with shopping and suggesting purchase alternatives to a user. FIG. 1B is block diagram that represents one variation of an augmented reality system that may be configured to suggest purchase alternatives to a user.
FIG. 2A depicts one variation of an augmented reality device. FIGS. 2B-2J depict various secondary devices (totems) that may be used with an augmented reality device as part of an augmented reality system. FIG. 2K is a block diagram representation of the components of an augmented reality device.
FIG. 3A is a flowchart representation of one variation of a method for purchasing items using an AR system at a retail location. FIG. 3B is a flowchart representation of one variation of a method that may be used with an augmented reality system involved with suggesting purchase alternatives to a user.
FIG. 4 is a pseudo-code representation of a computer-implemented method that may be used to generate an offer.
FIGS. 5A-5G depict various scenarios in which an augmented reality system may provide offers to purchase goods and services to a user.
FIGS. 6A-6D depict variations of tables or databases that may be stored in the memory of an augmented reality system control server (e.g., in a merchant inventory system or server) and/or a computational component of an ARD. FIG. 6E depicts a representation of an item data structure object.
