Resident Device Routing for Stable Smart Home Accessory Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Communication challenges between devices in residential and professional environments due to unstable or multiple network connections, leading to increased processing demands and energy consumption, and issues with data synchronization and security.
Innovation Solution
Designating a primary device, the resident device, to act as a central hub for routing communications and data synchronization, ensuring stable and secure transmission between devices, including encryption and decryption functions.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If devices communicate directly over multiple network connections, then communication flexibility is improved, but communication reliability deteriorates due to unstable connections
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a gateway device as an intermediary that routes communications between smart devices and external networks. The gateway consolidates multiple network connections and provides a stable communication path, eliminating the need for each device to maintain direct connections to multiple networks while preserving communication flexibility through the gateway's routing capabilities.
2Adaptability or versatility
If devices maintain multiple direct network connections, then communication options increase, but processing demands and energy consumption increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple network connections into a single gateway device. Instead of each smart device maintaining separate connections to multiple networks, all communications are consolidated through the gateway, which manages the network connections centrally. This reduces the processing load and energy consumption on individual battery-powered devices while maintaining multiple communication options through the gateway.
3Loss of information
If devices synchronize data directly, then data freshness is improved, but data synchronization reliability deteriorates due to network instability
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway acts as an intermediary for data synchronization between smart devices and external services. It maintains local copies of data and synchronizes changes through stable connections, ensuring data freshness is preserved while the gateway's centralized management provides synchronization reliability even when individual device connections are unstable.
4Speed
If direct device-to-device communication is used, then communication speed is improved, but security risks increase
Solution Approach 1:
The gateway serves as a secure intermediary that all communications must pass through. It implements security policies, authentication, and encryption centrally, maintaining fast local communication between devices while the gateway's security measures protect against external threats. The gateway filters and controls all incoming and outgoing traffic, reducing security risks without significantly impacting communication speed for authorized data.
Data Source
AI summary
Aspects of the disclosure include a method for communicating between a controller device and resident device. An example method includes detecting, by a controller, the resident device and an accessory connected to a local network. Establishing, by the controller, a first direct connection with the accessory. Receiving, by the controller, an input that identifies a control instruction for controlling the accessory. Determining, by the controller, whether to transmit a message comprising the control instruction to the accessory via the first direct connection with the accessory or the second direct connection with the resident device. Transmitting, by the controller, the message comprising the control instruction to the resident device via the second direct connection, the resident device configured to relay the message comprising the control instruction to the accessory.