Electronic device and method for controlling application and component

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10470133-B2
Application number	US-201715432477-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 14, 2017
Priority date	Feb 19, 2016
Publication date	Nov 5, 2019
Grant date	Nov 5, 2019

Abstract

An electronic device and an operating method thereof for monitoring, identifying and controlling an application and a component which excessively consume battery power are provided. The electronic device monitors an operation of an application installed therein or an operation of a component embedded therein. The electronic device checks the amount of power consumed for the operation of the application or the operation of the component at regular intervals, and based on the checked amount of power, determines whether the operation of the application or the operation of the component is an abnormal operation. If the operation of the application or the operation of the component is an abnormal operation, the electronic device identifies a policy corresponding to the abnormal operation and based on the identified policy, controls the operation of the application or the operation of the component to eliminate the abnormal operation.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An electronic device, comprising:
a display;
a memory configured to:
store an application, and
store a policy for controlling an operation of at least one of the application or a component of the electronic device;

a power management module configured to check an amount of power consumed for the operation of at least one of the application or the component; and
at least one processor configured to:
check, through the power management module, the amount of power consumed for the operation of the at least one of the application or the component at regular intervals,
determine, based on the checked amount of power, whether the operation of the at least one of the application or the component is an abnormal operation,
identify if the operation of the at least one of the application or the component is the abnormal operation, the policy of each of the at least one of the application or the component, respectively, and corresponding to the abnormal operation,
determine, if the application is run in the background, whether a central processing unit (CPU) usage rate corresponding to the operation of the application exceeds a threshold, and
display, if the CPU usage rate exceeds the threshold, a notification message indicating the abnormal operation for running the application on the display.

2. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:
check, when the display is turned off, whether a wakelock of the application maintains an activated state for a time exceeding a threshold,
determine, if the wakelock maintains the activated state for the time exceeding the threshold, whether the application is a music related application, and
determine, if the application is not a music related application, that the operation of the application is an abnormal operation.

3. The electronic device of claim 2 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:
control the operation of the application by releasing the wakelock so as to inactivate the wakelock of the application.

4. The electronic device of claim 3 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:
provide a notification message indicating detailed information about the release of the wakelock through the display.

5. The electronic device of claim 2 , wherein the wakelock is a command for waking the electronic device in a sleep mode or for preventing the electronic device from entering the sleep mode.

6. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:
detect a location request signal generated from the application,
check whether a time interval of detecting the location request signal is less than a threshold, and
determine, if the time interval is less than the threshold, that the operation of the application is an abnormal operation.

7. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:
detect a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) scanning request signal generated from the application,
check whether a time interval of detecting the BLE scanning request signal is less than a threshold, and
determine, if the time interval is less than the threshold, that the operation of the application is an abnormal operation.

8. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein each policy is differently established regarding the operations of the application and the component so as to determine abnormal operations of the application and the component, respectively.

9. The electronic device of claim 1 , wherein at least one policy is established to terminate only a part of the operations of the at least one of the application or the component to eliminate the abnormal operation.

10. An operating method of an electronic device, the method comprising:
checking an amount of power consumed for an operation of the at least one of an application or a component at regular intervals;
determining, based on the checked amount of power, whether the operation of the at least one of the application or the component is an abnormal operation;
identifying, if the operation of the at least one of the application or the component is the abnormal operation, a policy of each of the at least one of the application or the component, respectively, and corresponding to the abnormal operation;
determining, if the application is run in the background, whether a central processing unit (CPU) usage rate corresponding to the operation of the application exceeds a threshold; and
displaying, if the CPU usage rate exceeds the threshold, a notification message indicating the abnormal operation for running the application.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the determining of the abnormal operation includes:
checking, when a display of the electronic device is turned off, whether a wakelock of the application maintains an activated state for a time exceeding a threshold;
determining, if the wakelock maintains the activated state for the time exceeding the threshold, whether the application is a music related application; and
determining, if the application is not a music related application, that the operation of the application is an abnormal operation.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the controlling of the operation of the application includes:
releasing a wakelock of the application so as to inactivate the wakelock.

13. The method of claim 12 , further comprising:
providing a notification message indicating detailed information about release of the wakelock.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the determining of the abnormal operation includes:
detecting a location request signal generated from the application;
checking whether a time interval of detecting the location request signal is less than a threshold; and
determining, if the time interval is less than the threshold, that the operation of the application is an abnormal operation.

15. The method of claim 10 , wherein the determining of the abnormal operation includes:
detecting a Bluetooth low energy (BLE) scanning request signal generated from the application;
checking whether a time interval of detecting the BLE scanning request signal is less than a threshold; and
determining, if the time interval is less than the threshold, that the operation of the application is an abnormal operation.

16. The method of claim 10 , wherein each policy is differently established regarding the operations of the application and the component so as to determine abnormal operations of the application and the component, respectively.

17. The method of claim 10 ,
wherein at least one policy is established to terminate only a part of the operations of the at least one of the application or the component to eliminate the abnormal operation.

Assignees

• Samsung Electronics Co Ltd

Inventors

• Kim Byungwook
• Bang Sungyong
• Kim Mooyoung

Classifications

• H04W68/005

  Transmission of information for alerting of incoming communication · CPC title

• H04L43/16

  Threshold monitoring · CPC title

• H04W52/0264 Primary

  by selectively disabling software applications · CPC title

• H04W4/80

  Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication · CPC title

• H04L43/0817

  by checking functioning · CPC title