Method and apparatus for connecting peripheral devices

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016128124-A1
Application number	US-201614992835-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jan 11, 2016
Priority date	Mar 12, 2014
Publication date	May 5, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A method and apparatus for connecting peripheral devices are disclosed. The method is performed at an electronic device having one or more processors and memory, and includes: scanning, through a user interface of a social networking application, an image containing encoded information associated with a first peripheral device that provides a first wireless communication interface; retrieving, based on the encoded information, a first identity information item of the first peripheral device from a server hosting a social networking platform associated with the social networking application; and in accordance with the retrieved first identity information item, establishing a wireless connection between the electronic device and the first peripheral device via the first wireless communication interface of the first peripheral device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for connecting devices, comprising:
at an electronic device having one or more processors and memory:
scanning, through a user interface of a social networking application, an image containing encoded information associated with a first peripheral device that provides a first wireless communication interface;
retrieving, based on the encoded information, a first identity information item of the first peripheral device from a server hosting a social networking platform associated with the social networking application; and
in accordance with the retrieved first identity information item, establishing a wireless connection between the electronic device and the first peripheral device via the first wireless communication interface of the first peripheral device.

2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
sending a contact establishment request to the server to establish a first device contact for a social network user account associated with the electronic device to represent at least the first peripheral device, wherein the contact establishment request includes one or more of:
the image,
the encoded information, and
device information of the first peripheral device identified by the electronic device from the image.

3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
receiving a confirmation in response to the contact establishment request from the server; and adding the first device contact to a listing of social networking contacts for the social network user account in the user interface of the social network application.

4 . The method of claim 3 , wherein retrieving, based on the encoded information, the first identity information item of the first peripheral device from the server hosting the social networking platform associated with the social networking application further comprises:
based on the encoded information, retrieving multiple identity information items corresponding to multiple peripheral devices including the first peripheral device; wherein adding the first device contact to a listing of social networking contacts for the social network user account in the user interface of the social network application further comprises:
presenting a listing of sub-contacts under the first device contact in the user interface of the social network application, each sub-contact corresponding to a respective one of the multiple peripheral devices; and
wherein establishing the wireless connection between the electronic device and the first peripheral device is in response to a selection of a respective sub-contact corresponding to the first peripheral device from the presented listing of sub-contacts by a user of the electronic device.

5 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
displaying respective avatars corresponding to the multiple peripheral devices in the listing of sub-contacts; and changing an appearance of the respective avatar for a respective one of the multiple peripheral devices in response to a change in a connection status between the electronic device and the respective one of the multiple peripheral devices.

6 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
establishing more than one wireless connection with more than one peripheral device from the multiple peripheral devices; preparing a message from the social network user account; selecting a respective one of the sub-contacts for sending the message to a corresponding peripheral device of the selected respective one of the sub-contacts; and sending the message to the server for conversion into a device-readable message for the corresponding peripheral device of the selected respective one of the sub-contacts.

7 . The method of claim 6 , before sending the message to the server for conversion, further comprising:
detecting whether a wireless connection between the electronic device and the corresponding selected peripheral device is active.

8 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising:
selecting one of the sub-contacts for sending a message to a corresponding peripheral device; selecting a message input format based on the corresponding selected peripheral device; and preparing a message in the message input format to be sent to the corresponding selected peripheral device.

9 . The method of claim 1 , before the retrieving, further comprising:
based on the encoded information, establishing a first device contact for a social network user account associated with the electronic device; and presenting a listing of sub-contacts under the first device contact based on the encoded information, wherein each of the sub-contacts corresponds to a respective one of multiple peripheral devices including the first peripheral device, and wherein the retrieving of the first identity information item of the first peripheral device from the server and the establishing of the wireless connection between the electronic device and the first peripheral device are in response to a selection of a respective sub-contact corresponding to the first peripheral device from the listing of sub-contacts.

10 . An electronic device, comprising:
one or more processors; and memory storing one or more programs to be executed by the one or more processors, the one or more programs comprising instructions for:
scanning, through a user interface of a social networking application, an image containing encoded information associated with a first peripheral device that provides a first wireless communication interface;
retrieving, based on the encoded information, a first identity information item of the first peripheral device from a server hosting a social networking platform associated with the social networking application; and
in accordance with the retrieved first identity information item, establishing a wireless connection between the electronic device and the first peripheral device via the first wireless communication interface of the first peripheral device.

11 . The electronic device of claim 10 , wherein the one or more programs further comprise instructions for:
sending a contact establishment request to the server to establish a first device contact for a social network user account associated with the electronic device to represent at least the first peripheral device, wherein the contact establishment request includes one or more of:
the image,
the encoded information, and
device information of the first peripheral device identified by the electronic device from the image.

12 . The electronic device of claim 11 , wherein the one or more programs further comprise instructions for:
receiving a confirmation in response to the contact establishment request from the server; and adding the first device contact to a listing of social networking contacts for the social network user account in the user interface of the social network application.

13 . The electronic device of claim 12 , wherein retrieving, based on the encoded information, the first identity information item of the first peripheral device from the server hosting the social networking platform associated with the social networking application further comprises:
based on the encoded information, retrieving multiple identity information items corresponding to multiple peripheral devices including the first peripheral device; wherein adding the first device contact to a listing of social networking contacts for the social network user account in the user interface of the social network application further comprises: presenting a listing of sub-contacts under the first device contact in the user interface of the social network

Assignees

• Tencent Tech Shenzhen Co Ltd

Inventors

• Liu Jinhai
• Liu Chenglin
• Shu Zhan
• Lin Xiangyao

Classifications

• H04W4/008

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L67/10

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• H04L67/306

  User profiles · CPC title

• H04W76/023 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04W48/16 Primary

  Discovering, processing access restriction or access information · CPC title