Establishing a connection over a low power communication type

• US 9,924,342 B2
• Filed: 06/14/2016
• Issued: 03/20/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 06/16/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Google LLC (Alphabet Inc.)
• Inventors: Logue, Jay D., Wang, Liang-Yun, Stebbins, Andrew William
• Primary Examiner(s): Jia, Xin
• Application Number:
  US15/182,476
• Publication Number:
  US 20160374120A1
• Time in Patent Office: 644 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 21/182 Level alarms, e.g. alarms responsive to variables exceeding a threshold
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/001 Alarm cancelling procedures or alarm forwarding decisions, e.g. based on absence of alarm confirmation
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/08 using communication transmission lines G08B13/19658, G08B21/0286, G08B25/016 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 25/10 using wireless transmission systems G08B25/009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 29/18 Prevention or correction of operating errors G08B29/02, G08B29/12 take precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 29/188 Data fusion; cooperative systems, e.g. voting among different detectors
• CPC Class Codes: G08B 3/10 using electric transmission; using electromagnetic transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2803 Home automation networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2809 indicating that an appliance service is present in a home automation network monitoring functionality H04L43/0817; discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services, H04L67/51
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2012/2841 Wireless
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/06 Selective distribution of broadcast services, e.g. multimedia broadcast multicast service [MBMS]; Services to user groups; One-way selective calling services
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0229 where the received signal is a wanted signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/10 Connection setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/14 Direct-mode setup
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/38 triggered by timers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/005 Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/06 Transport layer protocols, e.g. TCP [Transport Control Protocol] over wireless transmission control protocol/Internet protocol [TCP/IP] or user datagram protocol [UDP] H04L69/16
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/12 WLAN [Wireless Local Area Networks]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/18 : Self-organising networks, e.g. ad-hoc networks or sensor networks
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 : in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Methods and systems for communicating messages with another electronic device via a characteristic-based communication. Communicating includes establishing a connection with the other electronic device over a low power wireless radio using a characteristic-based communication protocol and submitting a connection request message to the other device by writing a value to a first characteristic associated with the characteristic-based communication protocol. Communicating also includes subscribing to messages from the other electronic device by writing a value to a second characteristic associated with the characteristic-based communication protocol and communicating with the other electronic device by using the first characteristic to send messages to the remote device and the second characteristic to receive messages from the other electronic device.

Claims

1. A non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors of an electronic device, are configured to cause the electronic device to:

communicate messages of a message-based protocol with another electronic device via a characteristic-based communication protocol, the message-based protocol having a larger message length than the characteristic-based communication protocol, including;

establish a connection with the other electronic device over a low power radio using the characteristic-based communication protocol;

submit a connection request message to the other electronic device by writing a value to a first characteristic associated with the characteristic-based communication protocol;

subscribe to messages from the other electronic device by writing a value to a second characteristic associated with the characteristic-based communication protocol; and

communicate with the other electronic device by using the first characteristic to send messages of the message-based protocol to the other electronic device and the second characteristic to receive messages of the message-based protocol from the other electronic device.

2. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to receive, from the other electronic device, a confirmation of writing of a value to the first characteristic in the communication with the other electronic device after the value has been written to the first characteristic.

3. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to receive, from the other electronic device, a confirmation of subscription to the second characteristic after subscribing to the second characteristic.

4. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to receive from the other electronic device an indication via the second characteristic that the connection to the other electronic device has been established over the low power radio.

5. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to send an outgoing indication to the other electronic device via the first characteristic that indicates that the communication has been established over the low power radio.

6. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the low power radio is configured to affect a point-to-point connection that is advertisement based.

7. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the low power radio comprises a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio, and the first characteristic comprises a first characteristic in a General Attribute (GATT) table and the second characteristic comprises a second characteristic in the GATT table.

8. The non-transitory, tangible, and computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions are configured to:

request capabilities of the other electronic device from the other electronic device;

initiate a timer when the capabilities of the other electronic device are requested;

determine if the timer has passed a timeout threshold; and

if the timer has passed the timeout threshold without receiving the capabilities of the other electronic device from the other electronic device, close communication with the other electronic device.

9. An electronic device comprising:

one or more processors;

memory storing instructions, the instructions being configured to cause the one or more processors to;

communicate messages of a message-based protocol with another electronic device via a characteristic-based communication protocol, the message-based protocol having a larger message length than the characteristic-based communication protocol, including;

establish a connection with the other electronic device over a low power radio using the characteristic-based communication protocol;

submit a connection request message to the other electronic device by writing a value to a first characteristic associated with the characteristic-based communication protocol;

subscribe to messages from the other electronic device by writing a value to a second characteristic associated with the characteristic-based communication protocol; and

communicate with the other electronic device by using the first characteristic to send messages of the message-based protocol to the other electronic device and the second characteristic to receive messages of the message-based protocol from the other electronic device.

10. The electronic device of claim 9, wherein the low power radio comprises a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) radio.

11. The electronic device of claim 10, wherein the first characteristic and the second characteristic each comprise a characteristic in a General Attribute (GATT) table.

12. The electronic device of claim 9, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to:

request capabilities of the other electronic device from the other electronic device;

initiate a timer when the capabilities of the other electronic device are requested;

determine if the timer has passed a timeout threshold; and

if the timer has passed the timeout threshold without receiving the capabilities of the other electronic device from the other electronic device, close a connection to the other electronic device.

13. The electronic device of claim 9, wherein the instructions are configured to cause the one or more processors to communicate with the other electronic device using the low power radio in response to device capabilities being received from the other electronic device and confirmation of a subscription being received from the other electronic device.

14. The electronic device of claim 9, wherein the connection request message comprises:

one or more check bytes;

a supported protocol version field;

a maximum transfer unit that indicates a maximum length of a message fragment observed for the other electronic device; and

a client size window that indicates a maximum receive window size of the electronic device indicating a number of packets that may be received at a time.

15. A method for communicating messages of a message-based protocol with another electronic device via a characteristic-based communication protocol, the message-based protocol having the larger message length than a characteristic-based communication protocol, comprising:

establishing, using one or more processors, a connection with the other electronic device over a low power radio using the characteristic-based communication protocol;

submitting a connection request message to the other electronic device by writing a value to a first characteristic associated with the characteristic-based communication protocol;

subscribing to messages from the other electronic device by writing a value to a second characteristic associated with the characteristic-based communication protocol; and

communicating with the other electronic device by using the first characteristic to send messages of the message-based protocol to the other electronic device and the second characteristic to receive messages of the message-based protocol from the other electronic device.

16. The method of claim 15 comprising:

initiating a timer when the connection request message is submitted;

determining if the timer has passed a timeout threshold; and

if the timer has passed the timeout threshold without receiving a subscription confirmation from the other electronic device, closing a connection to the other electronic device.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the connection request message comprises:

one or more check bytes;

a supported protocol version field;

a maximum transfer unit that indicates a maximum length of a message fragment observed for the electronic device; and

a client size window that indicates a maximum receive window size of the other electronic device indicating a number of packets that may be received at a time.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the maximum transfer unit is limited by a length of the at least one data field and message overhead for messages sent using the at least one data field.

19. The method of claim 18, comprising receiving message fragments of a message of the message-based protocol, the message having a length that exceeds a size indicated by the maximum transfer unit, wherein each message fragment includes a portion of the message of the message-based protocol that has the length that exceeds the length of the maximum transfer unit.

20. The method of claim 15, comprising:

receiving a close connection indication;

in response to the receiving the close connection indication, closing the connection with the other electronic device; and

in response to the closing the connection, scanning for advertisements for availability of connection with the other electronic device using the low power radio.