Controlling power states of a peripheral device in response to user proximity

摘要

In a method of controlling the power state of a peripheral device, the peripheral is changed from a first power state to a second power state in response to communications across a network connected to the peripheral indicating that a user is proximately located to the peripheral. A user may be determined to be proximately located to the peripheral by monitoring communications across the network to detect traffic that is associated with a user logging onto a computer that can utilize the peripheral, by discovering a wireless terminal that is associated with a user and which is proximately located to the peripheral, by receiving information from a cellular communication network across the network that indicates that a user of the peripheral is proximately located to the peripheral, and/or in response to a time of day and/or day of week/month schedule.

主权项

1. A method of controlling power states of a peripheral device, the method comprising:
monitoring communications across a network to learn first associations between occurrences of certain traffic on the network and use of the peripheral proximate in time to the occurrences; detecting a subsequent occurrence of the certain traffic on the network; using the first associations to determine that a user is proximately located to the peripheral responsive to detecting the subsequent occurrence of the certain traffic on the network; changing the peripheral from a first lower power state to a second higher power state in response to determining that the user is proximately located to the peripheral; wherein the network comprises a wireless local area network, and wherein detecting the subsequent occurrence of the certain traffic and using the first associations comprises:
discovering a wireless communication terminal that is proximate to the peripheral in response to receiving communications across the wireless local area network from the wireless communication terminal; andwhen the peripheral is in the first power state, changing the peripheral to the second power state in response to the discovery of the wireless communication terminal; learning second associations between discovering a wireless communication terminal having a received identifier and the peripheral receiving an operational command via the network within a threshold time of the discovery; using the second associations to determine when discovery of a wireless communication terminal having the received identifier is associated with the user of the peripheral; when the peripheral is in the first power state, changing the peripheral to the second power state in response to determining that a discovered wireless communication terminal having the received identifier is associated with the user of the peripheral; and communicating a message query from the peripheral to a computer to prompt the user to indicate whether use of the peripheral is planned.