Detecting Device Presence for a Layer 3 Connection Using Layer 2 Discovery Information

• US 20160212646A1
• Filed: 12/15/2015
• Published: 07/21/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/12/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Navasivasakthivelsamy, Arunkumar, Desai, Mitesh K., Rajpure, Dattatraya B., Filgueiras, Henrique M.A., Sankaranarayan, Mukund, Gupta, Abhinav, Murching, Arvind M., Miryala, Manoj Kumar
• Granted Patent: US 9,668,153 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• 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 41/22 comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0212 managed by the network, e.g. network or access point is master and terminal is slave
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 52/0229 where the received signal is a wanted signal
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 76/25 Maintenance of established connections
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/005 Discovery of network devices, e.g. terminals
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 30/70 in wireless communication networks

Abstract

Techniques for monitoring presence of a remote device at Layer 2 that allow reducing power consumption without compromising the device'"'"'s availability. A device that pairs with a remote wireless device may establish a Layer 3 connection, such as an IP connection, to the remote device to provide services to a user. The Layer 3 connection may be formed over a Layer 2 connection via an access point or as a peer-to-peer wireless connection between the devices. When the Layer 3 connection is not actively used to access the remote device, the Layer 3 connection and the supporting Layer 2 connection (e.g., WI-FI, WI-FI DIRECT™ or BLUETOOTH®) may be terminated and presence of the remote device may be monitored using a Layer 2 device discovery mechanism. The Layer 2 and Layer 3 connections to the device may be reestablished when use of the remote device is desired.

Claims

1. A method of displaying device information, the method performed by a computing device and comprising:

executing a device manager that manages installation of devices for the computing device, the device manager comprising a user interface;

displaying the user interface, including displaying a set of indicators corresponding to devices determined to be available to the computing device, wherein the set of indicators to be displayed is determined by, for a given device;

establishing an Internet Protocol (IP) connection with the given device and in conjunction therewith obtaining device information about the given device;

storing the device information about the given device;

determining from the stored device information that presence of the given device is to be monitored for, and in response monitoring for presence of the given device at a wireless link layer via a wireless interface of the computing device and not at an IP layer, the monitoring performed while the computer has no IP connection with the first device or has a suspended IP connection with the first device, and the monitoring is not performed at the IP layer; and

based on the monitoring, including in the set of indicators an indicator for the given device.

2. A method according to claim 1, further comprising maintaining a list of devices for which the monitoring is to be performed.

3. A method according to claim 2, wherein the devices are added to the list based on IP connections thereof with the computing device.

4. A method according to claim 3, wherein at least some of the devices are added to the list based on IP connections that do not use the wireless interface.

5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the displaying the user interface is such that when the device is determined to be present the corresponding indicator has a first appearance and when the device is not determined to be present the corresponding indicator has a second appearance.

6. A method according to claim 1, wherein the displaying the user interface further comprises displaying second indicators of respective devices previously installed to the computing device.

7. A method according to claim 6, wherein the second indicators are displayed to distinguish between available installed devices and unavailable installed devices.

8. A computing device comprising:

a link-level implementation of a link-level protocol for a wireless network interface of the computing device;

a network-level implementation of a network-level protocol, wherein the link-level implementation and the network-level implementation operate such that;

in association with a network-level connection with a device the computing device designates the device for presence-monitoring, the designation of the device at least in part causing the link-level implementation to monitor for presence of the device when the network-level implementation indicates there is no existing or unsuspended network connection with the device; and

a device manager comprising a user interface that displays indicators of devices in accordance with the presence-monitoring.

9. A computing device according to claim 8, wherein the network-level implementation provides a notification to a monitoring component when a network-level connection is formed, the monitoring component controlling the presence-monitoring.

10. A computing device according to claim 8, wherein the network-level implementation handles packets of a network transport protocol, wherein the link-level implementation handles packets of a link protocol having payloads that carry the packets of the network transport protocol.

11. A computing device according to claim 9, wherein the user interface displays the indicators with graphics that indicate whether the indicators are determined to be present according to the presence-monitoring, wherein a given device has a first indicator when the given device is determined to be present and has a second indicator when the given device is determined to be not present.

12. A computing device according to claim 8, wherein the presence-monitoring is performed responsive to a trigger event.

13. A computing device according to claim 12, wherein the trigger event comprises an interaction targeting a device subject to presence-monitoring, the interaction initiated by an application on the computing device.

14. A computer readable storage device storing information to enable a computing device to perform a process, the process performed by the computing device and comprising:

forming a network-level connection between the computing device and a device, and in response thereto storing a monitoring indication associated with the device;

responsive to detection of termination or suspension of the network-level connection, based on the stored monitoring indication, monitoring for presence of the device using a wireless interface of the computing device; and

displaying a user interface that comprises indicators of respective devices associated with the computing device, the displaying including displaying an indicator of the device in accordance with detection of the device by the monitoring.

15. A computer readable storage device according to claim 14, the process further comprising changing an appearance of the indicator of the device to indicate, according to the monitoring, whether the device is available or not via the wireless interface.

16. A computer readable storage device according to claim 14, the process further comprising automatically forming a new network-level connection responsive to the monitoring indicating presence of the device.

17. A computer readable storage device according to claim 16, the process further comprising displaying the indicator of the device responsive to forming the new network-level connection.

18. A computer readable storage device according to claim 14, the process further comprising automatically unsuspending the network-level connection responsive to the monitoring indicating presence of the device.

19. A computer readable storage device according to claim 18, the process further comprising displaying the indicator of the device responsive to the forming of the new network-level connection.

20. A computer readable storage device according to claim 14, wherein the user interface has a first display area that displays indicators of respective installed devices and has a second display area that displays indicators of respective available devices, wherein indicators move between the first and second display areas in accordance with the monitoring.