Establishing a connection over a low power communication type

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9924342-B2
Application number	US-201615182476-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 14, 2016
Priority date	Jun 16, 2015
Publication date	Mar 20, 2018
Grant date	Mar 20, 2018

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.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

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;
de

Assignees

• Google Inc
• Google Llc

Inventors

• Logue Jay D
• Wang Liang-Yun
• Stebbins Andrew William

Classifications

• H04W52/0229

  where the received signal is a wanted signal · CPC title

• G08B21/182

  Level alarms, e.g. alarms responsive to variables exceeding a threshold · CPC title

• H04L12/2803

  Home automation networks · CPC title

• H04L12/2809

  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 title

• G08B25/001

  Alarm cancelling procedures or alarm forwarding decisions, e.g. based on absence of alarm confirmation · CPC title