REDUCED POWER CONSUMPTION USING COORDINATED BEACON SKIPPING

摘要

In order to reduce the power consumption associated with waking and receiving beacons, a current listening device in a group of electronic devices wakes and scans for a beacon from another electronic device (such as an access point) using a wireless-local-area-network (WLAN) communication protocol (such as Wi-Fi®). Then, the current listening device transmits information associated with the beacon to the group of electronic devices using a second communication protocol (such as Bluetooth® Low Energy), which is different than the WLAN communication protocol and has a lower power consumption. Moreover, the current listening device receives, using the second communication protocol, a sequence of responses from the group of electronic devices indicating that the information was received, wherein the responses from different electronic devices are received at different times. For example, the responses may be received in a predefined order and/or in round-robin fashion for the group of electronic devices.

主权项

1. A first electronic device, comprising:
an antenna; and an interface circuit, coupled to the antenna, configured to communicate with a second electronic device and a group of electronic devices, wherein the first electronic device functions as a listening device for the group of electronic devices, and wherein the interface circuit is configured to:
scan for a beacon transmitted by the second electronic device using a wireless local area network (WLAN) communication protocol;transmit information associated with the beacon to the group of electronic devices using a second communication protocol, wherein the second communication protocol is different than the WLAN communication protocol; andreceive, using the second communication protocol, a sequence of responses from the group of electronic devices indicating that the information was received, wherein the responses from different electronic devices are received at different times.