US 11,704,711 B1
Beacon-based management of queues
Michal Knas, Monson, MA (US); and Jiby John, Suffiield, CT (US)
Assigned to Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, Springfield, MA (US)
Filed by MASSACHUSETTS MUTUAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY, Springfield, MA (US)
Filed on Apr. 23, 2020, as Appl. No. 16/856,792.
Application 16/856,792 is a continuation of application No. 15/466,542, filed on Mar. 22, 2017, granted, now 10,636,069.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/312,583, filed on Mar. 24, 2016.
Int. Cl. G06Q 30/00 (2023.01); G06Q 30/0601 (2023.01); H04W 4/02 (2018.01)
CPC G06Q 30/0613 (2013.01) [H04W 4/02 (2013.01)] 16 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method comprising:
periodically monitoring, by a server using beacon signals, locations of a first set of electronic devices;
identifying, by the server, a set of queues based on a current location of an electronic device within the first set of electronic devices, each queue within the set of queues corresponding to a line of at least one electronic device within the first set of electronic devices and a corresponding service station;
calculating, by the server, an estimated processing time for each queue within the set of queues, the estimated processing time corresponding to a rate of at least one electronic device within the first set of electronic devices entering and exiting a queue within the set of queues, wherein the estimated processing time is calculated based on a plurality of tokens issued to a second set of electronic devices that have previously entered and exited the set of queues;
displaying, by the server on a graphical user interface of the electronic device, a subset of the set of queues within a facility, wherein the server displays an identification information and estimated processing time for each displayed queue;
upon receiving a selection of at least one queue within the subset of the set of queues:
adding, by the server, the electronic device to a virtual queue associated with the selected queue;
updating, by the server, the graphical user interface to display a position of the electronic device within the selected queue based on beacon signals indicating locations of one or more electronic devices within the selected virtual queue;
in response to determining that an estimated processing time of a queue within the set of queues exceeds a threshold, automatically transmitting, by the server, a signal to open an additional service station having a first attribute corresponding to that queue; and
updating, by the server, the graphical user interface to display an additional queue associated with the additional service station.