Switching between watches or other accessories

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2017201611-A1
Application number	US-201615273414-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Sep 22, 2016
Priority date	Jan 10, 2016
Publication date	Jul 13, 2017
Grant date	—

Abstract

Systems, methods and non-transitory computer readable media for allowing a user to switch between watches that have been paired with a device such as a smartphone are described. In one embodiment, the watches automatically detect a removal of a first watch from a user's wrist and an attachment of a second watch to the user's wrist. Messages from the watches are transmitted to the device to allow the device to switch the active watch from the first watch to the second watch. The switch can occur while the device is in a locked state, and the device can synchronize the second watch with data received from the first watch. Other embodiments are also described.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A non-transitory machine readable medium storing executable program instructions which when executed by a data processing system cause the data processing system to perform a method, the method comprising:
detecting removal of a first watch which has been synchronized at least partially with a companion device and detecting attachment of a second watch, each of the first watch and the second watch having been paired with the companion device; transmitting data to the second watch to synchronize the second watch in response to detecting attachment of the second watch and removal of the first watch, the transmitted data providing data from the first watch.

2 . The medium of claim 1 wherein detecting removal comprises receiving a first wrist state from the first watch and wherein detecting attachment comprises receiving a second wrist state from the second watch and wherein the second wrist state indicates a higher on-wrist confidence level than the first wrist state and wherein the companion device transmits the data to the second watch to synchronize the second watch with the companion device.

3 . The medium as in claim 2 wherein the transmitting is performed while the companion device is locked.

4 . The medium as in claim 3 wherein the companion device is locked when it requires a user's security input to unlock it to allow the companion device to receive further user input.

5 . The medium as in claim 4 wherein the detecting removal and the detecting attachment is performed while the companion device is locked, and wherein the user's security input is one of or a combination of two or more of: a password; a numeric passcode; a 2-D gesture on a touch screen; a biometric input.

6 . The medium as in claim 4 wherein the second wrist state is received through a Bluetooth advertisement which includes an advertising identifier.

7 . The medium as in claim 6 wherein the wrist state from each watch is derived from one or more sensors on each watch and wherein the companion device is one of a smartphone or a tablet computer which includes a cellular telephone transceiver, a WiFi transceiver, and a Bluetooth transceiver, and wherein the companion device is paired through Bluetooth with the first watch and the second watch.

8 . The medium as in claim 7 wherein the first watch and the second watch use the same advertising identifier.

9 . The medium as in claim 7 wherein the companion device provides a user interface to allow a user to select one or either: automatic watch switching or manual watch switching.

10 . The medium as in claim 9 wherein the transmitted data is provided to the second watch automatically without user input.

11 . The medium as in claim 10 wherein after detecting the removal and after detecting the attachment but prior to the second watch becoming the active watch the first watch provides health data to the companion device.

12 . A method performed by a watch that is paired with a companion device, the method comprising:
transmitting, through a Bluetooth advertisement message, a wrist state of the watch to the companion device, the wrist state indicating an on-wrist confidence level that is higher than an on-wrist confidence level of another watch, the difference in on-wrist confidence levels indicating a switch from the another watch to the watch; receiving data to synchronize the watch with at least one of the companion device or the another watch in response to the switch, the data having originated from the another watch.

13 . The method of claim 13 wherein the companion device is one of: a smartphone or a tablet computer and wherein the data is received from the companion device and comprises health data collected by the another watch through sensors on the another watch, and wherein the another watch and the watch are paired with the companion device for Bluetooth communication.

14 . A data processing system comprising:
one or more application processors for executing an operating system and one or more applications on the data processing system which is a wireless communication device, the one or more application processors having at least one sleep state and at least one run state which consumes more power than the sleep state; a radio controller which includes filter logic, the radio controller coupled to the one or more application processors to receive, from the one or more application processors, one or more values representing wrist states for processing by the filter logic; a radio transceiver coupled to the radio controller, the radio transceiver configured to receive one or more wrist states from an active paired watch and one or more wrist states from one or more inactive paired watches and provide these wrist states to the radio controller, wherein the radio controller is configured, through the filter logic, to prevent waking up the one or more application processors from the sleep state when all of the one or more inactive paired watches have a wrist state that indicates a lower on-wrist confidence level than a most recent wrist state from the active paired watch, and the radio controller is configured, through the filter logic, to wake up the one or more application processors from the sleep state when any one of the one or more inactive paired watches has a wrist state that indicates a higher on-wrist confidence level than the most recent wrist state from the active paired watch.

15 . The system as in claim 14 wherein the wireless communication device is one of either a smartphone or a tablet computer.

16 . The system as in claim 14 wherein the active paired watch and the one or more inactive paired watches are paired with the data processing system through Bluetooth.

17 . The system as in claim 16 wherein the one or more inactive paired watches use Bluetooth advertisements with the same identifier in the Bluetooth advertisements.

18 . The system as in claim 17 wherein the Bluetooth advertisements include the wrist states from the one or more inactive paired watches and wherein the radio transceiver is a Bluetooth radio.

19 . The system as in claim 18 wherein the one or more application processors wake up to switch which paired watch is the active paired watch.

20 . The system as in claim 19 wherein the data processing system and the active paired watch use an encrypted communication protocol on Bluetooth communication signals, the encrypted communication protocol established after the data processing system and the active paired watch have both been unlocked by a user's input.

21 . The system as in claim 20 wherein the one or more application processors provide to the radio controller one or more parameters representing a scan interval to cause the radio transceiver to scan for Bluetooth advertisements from the one or more inactive watches.

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Donley David C
• Poumallioux Julien A
• De Fillippis Pierre J
• Hawkins Tyler D
• Dooley Craig P
• Pollack Daniel B
• Grandy James C
• Novick Gregory B
• Shortlidge Todd A
• Pahwa Aroon
• Wilson David T
• Yang Yan
• Circosta Nicholas Joseph

Classifications

• H04M2250/02

  including a Bluetooth® interface · CPC title

• H04W56/0025 Primary

  synchronizing potentially movable access points · CPC title

• H04M2203/6054

  Biometric subscriber identification · CPC title

• H04M1/67

  by electronic means · CPC title

• H04M2203/6018

  Subscriber or terminal logon/logoff · CPC title