In-vehicle apparatus

• US 20120071097A1
• Filed: 09/20/2011
• Published: 03/22/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 09/21/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: DENSO Corporation, Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Original Assignee: DENSO Corporation, Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha (Toyota Motor Corporation)
• Inventors: Matsushita, Suguru, Sakata, Ryuuji, Yamamoto, Shinichi, Hayashi, Kazushige, Sasaki, Masao, Saito, Soichi
• Granted Patent: US 8,914,077 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/41.2
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/6091 including a wireless interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/02 including a Bluetooth interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/00 Connection management
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/005 Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals

Abstract

A control circuit of an the in-vehicle apparatus repeatedly performs a Bluetooth connection operation to connect to both of registered cellular phones and registered portable AV players in such a manner that, if an HFP connection has already been established to a cellular phone prior to an AVP connection to a portable AV player, the control circuit performs one round of AVP connection attempts to all of the registered portable AV players according to a priority order, prior to performing connection attempts to connect other data communication type profile to the cellular phone. By using such a profile connection scheme, the AVP connection attempt will not be delayed until after a connection attempt of the other data communication type profile.

Claims

1. An in-vehicle apparatus which is capable of establishing a Bluetooth connection to pre-registered multiple devices, the apparatus comprising:

a priority order setting unit that determines an order of priority of a plurality of multiple-device connection profiles of the Bluetooth connection;

and

a connection unit that connects the plurality of multiple-device connection profiles to the pre-registered multiple devices according to the order of priority of the plurality of multiple-device connection profiles.

2. The in-vehicle apparatus of claim 1, wherein the connection unit includes:

a first sub-unit that performs a connection attempt to establish a connection of a first profile from among the plurality of multiple-device connection profiles to the multiple devices; and

a second sub-unit that performs a connection attempt to establish a connection of a second profile from among the plurality of multiple-device connection profiles, which is different from the first profile, to the multiple devices, and,

after successfully establishing a connection of the first profile to a first device from among the multiple devices by the first sub-unit, the connection unit uses the second sub-unit for performing the connection attempt to establish a connection of the second profile to the multiple devices, without continuing to perform a connection attempt by the first sub-unit.

3. The in-vehicle apparatus of claim 2 further includes a connection operation controller, wherein

the first sub-unit establishes an HFP connection to an HFP type device to put the HFP type device in a call waiting condition,

the second sub-unit establishes an AVP connection to an AVP type device to enable a playback by the AVP type device,

the connection unit includes a third sub-unit for connecting a data communication type profile to the HFP type device, and

when the first sub-unit is connected prior to the connection of the second sub-unit after repeated operations of the first and second sub-units, the connection operation controller operates the second sub-unit before operating the third sub-unit.

4. The in-vehicle apparatus of claim 3 further includes:

a registration unit that stores a registration of a device that is connected to the connection operation controller at a time of previous power supply turn-off, wherein

the connection operation controller prioritizes the Bluetooth connection of the device that has the registration in the registration unit when the connection operation controller operates the second sub-unit.

5. The in-vehicle apparatus of claim 3, wherein the HFP type device is a cellular phone.

6. The in-vehicle apparatus of claim 3, wherein the AVP type device is a portable music player dedicated for playback of a music AV data.