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US 2026/0280936 A1Published application
External Activation of Quiescent Device
AssigneePassiveLogic, Inc.
InventorsMarciano Carter Preciado, Sterling Thomas Sleight, Jeremy 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 optical activation, comprising:
- a light detection circuit configured to receive an optical signal from an external light source and to generate an electrical signal responsive to the optical signal;
- a filter coupled to the light detection circuit and configured to produce electrical spikes from changes in the electrical signal while attenuating at least one of steady-state illumination or slowly varying illumination;
- a power control circuit coupled to receive at least one of the electrical spikes and configured, in response to the at least one of the electrical spikes, to enable power to processing circuitry;
- a timer configured to measure elapsed times between successive electrical spikes;
- and
- control circuitry configured to:
- count a plurality of the electrical spikes received before the processing circuitry is ready to decode a message;
- determine that a wake qualification criterion has been satisfied when the counted plurality of electrical spikes reaches a wakeup threshold selected to allow the processing circuitry to boot;
- and
- after the wake qualification criterion has been satisfied, decode information from elapsed times between subsequent successive electrical spikes, wherein symbol identity for the decoded information is determined from the elapsed times between the subsequent successive electrical spikes without using a duration for which the optical signal remains on.
7 more elements
A method for external optical activation of a device, comprising:
- receiving, by a light detection circuit of the device, an optical signal from an external light source;
- generating, by the light detection circuit, an electrical signal responsive to the optical signal;
- filtering the electrical signal to produce electrical spikes from changes in the electrical signal while attenuating at least one of steady-state illumination or slowly varying illumination;
- enabling power to processing circuitry of the device in response to at least one of the electrical spikes;
- measuring elapsed times between successive electrical spikes;
- counting a plurality of the electrical spikes received before the processing circuitry is ready to decode a message;
- determining that a wake qualification criterion has been satisfied when the counted plurality of electrical spikes reaches a wakeup threshold selected to allow the processing circuitry to boot;
- and
- after the wake qualification criterion has been satisfied, decoding information from elapsed times between subsequent successive electrical spikes, wherein symbol identity for the decoded information is determined from the elapsed times between the subsequent successive electrical spikes without using a duration for which the optical signal remains on.
6 more elements
A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by processing circuitry of a device, cause the device to perform operations comprising:
- detecting electrical spikes produced from changes in an electrical signal generated by a light detection circuit responsive to an optical signal received from an external light source, the electrical spikes being produced while at least one of steady-state illumination or slowly varying illumination is attenuated;
- measuring elapsed times between successive electrical spikes;
- counting a plurality of the electrical spikes received before the processing circuitry is ready to decode a message;
- determining that a wake qualification criterion has been satisfied when the counted plurality of electrical spikes reaches a wakeup threshold selected to allow the processing circuitry to boot;
- and
- after the wake qualification criterion has been satisfied, decoding information from elapsed times between subsequent successive electrical spikes, wherein symbol identity for the decoded information is determined from the elapsed times between the subsequent successive electrical spikes without using a duration for which the optical signal remains on.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.