HUB-TO-HUB PERIPHERAL DISCOVERY

• US 20150356030A1
• Filed: 06/05/2014
• Published: 12/10/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/05/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Zahand, Brannon James, Wallace, Daniel John
• Granted Patent: US 9,720,854 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/10 Program control for peripheral devices G06F13/14 - G06F13/42 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/20 for access to input/output bus
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/24 Reminder alarms, e.g. anti-loss alarms
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 64/00 Locating users or terminals or network equipment for network management purposes, e.g. mobility management

Abstract

Aspects of the disclosure enable location of a wireless peripheral by a computing device even when the wireless peripheral is beyond a communication range of, or otherwise inaccessible by, the computing device. A user gives a command to a first computing device to determine the location of the wireless peripheral. The first computing device requests other networked computing devices to locate the wireless peripheral. At least one of the other networked computing devices establishes communication with the wireless peripheral, obtains location information for the wireless peripheral, and communicates the location information to the first computing device. The first computing device communicates the location of the wireless peripheral to the user.

Claims

1. A system for locating peripherals enabling interaction with a computing device, the computing device being connected to at least one other computing device, said system comprising:

a memory area for storing data comprising a device identifier associated with at least one of the peripherals; and

a processor programmed to;

receive, by the computing device, a request from a user to locate the at least one of the peripherals, the at least one of the peripherals being in a low power state;

communicate with the at least one other computing device to obtain location information associated with the at least one of the peripherals, wherein said communication includes providing a subset of the stored data that includes the device identifier associated with the at least one of the peripherals to the at least one other computing device;

receive, at the computing device, the location information from the at least one other computing device; and

provide the received location information to the user.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the location information includes information indicating whether the at least one of the peripherals are obscured from visible light.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the peripherals determine their location and communicate the determined location to the at least one other computing device.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least one of the peripherals are outside a communication range of the computing device and within a communication range of the at least one other computing device.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein providing the received location information comprises providing on-screen display of the location on a display associated with the computing device.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the computing device is a gaming console.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the at least one of the peripherals comprise wireless peripherals selected from a group consisting of a game controller, a remote control, or a headset for interacting with the gaming console.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further programmed to activate one or more sensory indicators on the one or more peripherals.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the sensory indicators are selected from the group consisting of a haptic indicator, an audio indicator, or a visual indicator.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the request is selected from a group consisting of an audio command, a gesture command, or a selection of the at least one of the peripherals from options displayed to the user on the computing device.

11. A method for locating wireless peripherals, said method comprising:

receiving, by a computing device, a command from a user to locate a peripheral, the peripheral being outside a communication range of the computing device;

in response to receiving the command, instructing over a network one or more other computing devices that are within a communication range of the peripheral to determine the location of the peripheral;

receiving the location of the peripheral form the one or more computing devices over the network; and

providing the determined location to the user.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the computing device communicates a serial number of the peripheral over the network to instruct the one or more other computing devices to determine the location of the peripheral.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein the one or more other computing devices obtain the location of the peripheral via activating a location sensor associated with the peripheral.

14. The method of claim 11, wherein receiving the command from the user to locate the peripheral comprises receiving a command from a user to locate a peripheral that is in a low-power state.

15. The method of claim 11, wherein receiving the command from the user comprises receiving a command from a user via a natural user interface.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein receiving the command from the user comprises receiving a voice command that is interpreted via an always-on speech recognition application running on the computing device.

17. One or more computer storage media embodying computer-executable components which, when executed, perform hub-to-hub peripheral discovery, said components comprising:

an interface component that when executed by at least one processor causes the at least one processor to receive a command from a user to locate a peripheral for interaction with a computing device, the peripheral being outside a communication range of the computing device;

a peripheral data component that when executed by at least one processor causes the at least one processor to obtain identifying data associated with the peripheral;

a communication component that when executed by at least one processor causes the at least one processor to communicate the received command and the identifying data associated with the peripheral to one or more other computing devices, wherein the interface component receives location information from at least one of the one or more other computing devices based on the communicated identifying data, and wherein the peripheral is within a communication range of the at least one of the one or more other computing devices; and

a display component that when executed by at least one processor causes the at least one processor to display the received location information to the user.

18. The one or more computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the location information includes an identifier of a location on a current premises of the user, the identifier of the location indicating where the peripheral is located on the current premises.

19. The one or more computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the location information includes a status of the peripheral.

20. The one or more computer storage media of claim 17, wherein the location information includes sensor data captured by one or more sensors on the peripheral, the sensor data comprising data indicating a location of the peripheral relative to another object.