External activation of quiescent device
AssigneePassiveLogic, Inc.
InventorsMarciano Preciado, Sterling Thomas Sleight, Jeremy David Fillingim
Life of this patent
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Abstract
After installation, a device may be not yet powered. It may be awakened by receiving a flash of light of sufficient frequency and amplitude. After waking, the device decodes the message to determine its next action, and, upon request sends an authentication message. This enables a single user action to wake the device up and set it up with networking credentials. The same process may be used to wake the device outside of a normal sleep-wake cycle.
Claims20
A device capable of external activation comprising:
- a light detection circuit adapted to receive a light signal from a light source;
- a high pass filter coupled to the light detection circuit that when receiving light of at least a given intensity produces a spike;
- a power manager chip coupled to the light detection circuit that upon receipt of the spike enables power to a microcontroller;
- a component capable of inhabiting:
- a detection state in which:
- a spike is detected;
- and when a spike is found, a spike counter is incremented;
- a timer that measures a time between spikes;
- wherein when the time between spikes exceeds an END OF WORD length, the spike counter is cleared;
- wherein when the spike counter reaches a wakeup threshold then subsequent spikes and delay lengths are interpreted as a transmitted message;
- and
- wherein the wakeup threshold is of sufficient length to allow the microcontroller to boot.
A device with a microcontroller, memory, and transmitter comprising:
- a light detection circuit operationally able to receive a light signal from a light source, and operationally able to use the light signal to signal a power management circuit;
- the power management circuit operationally able to boot up the microcontroller;
- the microcontroller operationally able to scan the light signal for a message;
- and
- the transmitter operationally able to transmit at least a portion of the message;
- wherein the message is encoded in modified morse code;
- wherein a DOT is a signal of one time duration, a DASH is a signal of 3 time durations, an END OF LETTER is a signal of 5 time durations;
- and an END OF WORD is a signal of 9 time durations.
A method implemented by a device with one or more computers with memory, one or more processors, a light detection circuit, a high pass filter, and a transmitter comprising:
- receiving a light signal by the light detection circuit;
- the light detection circuit passing the light signal to a filter, the filter producing a series of spikes of at least a threshold intensity when the light signal is of sufficient intensity, the spikes a multiple of a base time apart;
- reading a message upon a receipt of one of the series of spikes;
- and
- wherein the message is encoded in modified morse code;
- wherein a DOT is a signal of one time duration, a DASH is a signal of 3 time durations, an END OF LETTER is a signal of 5 time durations;
- and an END OF WORD is a signal of 9 time durations.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.