RU2793192C2 - Data capture via devices - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: data processing.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to the field of services using short-range communication, namely, to establishing a wireless connection with an aerosol providing apparatus. To realise the technical result, a status request packet is received without establishing a connection from a remote wireless device via a wireless communication interface of the aerosol providing apparatus, a response packet is created in response to receiving the request packet in a state without establishing a connection using the wireless communication interface, and the response packet is transmitted via the wireless communication interface. The response packet herein includes first data from the memory device of the aerosol providing apparatus and second data generated by the aerosol providing apparatus and stored in the memory device.

EFFECT: connection established between the central and peripheral devices if the initial announcement period does not overlap with the initial scan window, due to the fact that an announcement period overlapping with the scan window is to be executed after a certain number of announcement and scan intervals.

17 cl, 10 dwg

Description

The technical field to which the invention belongs and the state of the art

The present disclosure relates to a method for an aerosol supply device and an aerosol supply device.

In traditional wireless communication approaches such as the Bluetooth communication protocol and Bluetooth Low Energy (also known as Bluetooth Smart Technology), individual devices can act as nodes, acting as masters or slaves in a particular communication link. Thus, each node assumes the role of a master device or the role of a slave device. Accordingly, in a communication pair, one node acts as a master and the other as a slave. In the context of the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol, the master node may be referred to as the hub and the slave node as the peripheral. A single master (or central) node can be the master for multiple slaves (the exact number is often limited by a particular chipset implementation), and while a node can be registered as a slave (or peripheral) to multiple masters, it can only be active as slave to one master at any given time.

Bluetooth and Bluetooth Low Energy are fundamentally different in operation from other Low Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks (LR-WPANs) such as Zigbee™ and Thread™, which are based on the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless protocol.

Publications WO 2017/020188 and US 2014/0107815 describe examples of communication between an aerosol delivery device and another electronic device.

Disclosure of the essence of the invention

Some specific aspects and embodiments are set forth in the appended claims.

From the point of view of the first aspect, a method for an aerosol providing device can be presented, comprising: controlling a wireless communication interface of the aerosol providing device in a listening mode; while operating in listening mode, receiving data from a wireless communication interface of another aerosol supply device; storing the received data in a memory of the aerosol supply device; creating, using the wireless communication interface of the aerosol providing device, an announcement packet in an unconnected state that includes information related to the identification and the setting state of the announcement of the aerosol providing device; transmitting the announcement package via the wireless communication interface; receiving a state request packet without establishing a connection from a remote wireless device via a wireless communication interface; in response to receiving the request packet, generating, using the wireless communication interface, a response packet in a connectionless state; and transmitting a response packet over the wireless communication interface, wherein at least one of the announcement packets and the response packet includes received data from the storage device and data generated by the aerosol providing device and stored in the storage device.

From the point of view of another aspect, an aerosol providing device may be provided, comprising: a processor; wireless communication interface; a storage device containing instructions that, when executed by the processor, perform a method of operating the wireless communication interface of the aerosol providing device in a listening mode; while operating in listening mode, data is received from a wireless communication interface of another aerosol delivery device; storing the received data in a memory of the aerosol supply device; creating, using the wireless communication interface of the aerosol providing device, an announcement packet in an unconnected state that includes information related to the identification and the state of the announcement mode of the aerosol providing device; transmitting the announcement package via the wireless communication interface; receiving a state request packet without establishing a connection from a remote wireless device via a wireless communication interface; in response to receiving the request packet, generating, using the wireless communication interface, a response packet in a connectionless state; and transmitting a response packet via the wireless communication interface, wherein at least one of the announcement packet and the response packet includes received data from the storage device and data generated by the aerosol providing device and stored in the storage device.

Brief description of the drawings

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 schematically illustrates the announcement protocol;

Fig. 2 schematically illustrates an example environment with devices;

Fig. 3 schematically illustrates the functional components of the aerosol delivery device;

Fig. 4 schematically illustrates the protocol stack;

Fig. 5 schematically illustrates scanning response time synchronization;

Fig. 6 schematically illustrates mode scheduling;

Fig. 7 schematically illustrates a mesh network of aerosol delivery devices;

Fig. 8 schematically illustrates a mesh network of aerosol delivery devices;

Fig. 9 schematically illustrates a method for an aerosol delivery device;

Fig. 10 schematically illustrates a method for an aerosol delivery device;

While the approach currently described is subject to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments of the invention are shown by way of example in the drawings and are described in detail herein. However, it should be appreciated that the drawings and their detailed description are not intended to limit the scope of the invention to the specific form disclosed, but rather, the scope of the invention should cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. .

Implementation of the invention

The present disclosure relates to a modified form of wireless communication behavior. In accordance with the ideas of the present invention, the device can be configured to use the Bluetooth communication protocol or a similar protocol, and thus can be transparent to other devices using the communication protocol to communicate with the device, as a master/central and slave/peripheral device. in different relationship relationships at the same time based on time separation.

In some examples, the devices may be aerosol delivery devices such as so-called "electronic cigarettes", sometimes also known as Electronic Nicotine Delivery devices (END devices), provided with electronics that allow them to communicate with other communication devices. The term “aerosol delivering device” as used herein refers to either a device containing an aerosol starting material (e.g., parts of the device and a disposable cartomizer part containing an aerosol starting material) and/or a device containing no aerosol starting material (e.g., only part of the device from the previous example).

In the present examples, the devices use the Bluetooth Low Energy ("BTLE") protocol, but other Bluetooth protocols or Bluetooth-like protocols may take advantage of the present invention. Bluetooth is a wireless technology standard for short distance communication between suitably unlocked devices. BTLE is a variant of the original Bluetooth system designed to consume less power during use to extend battery life and/or for devices with small batteries. Both Bluetooth and BTLE operate in the UHF Industry-Science-Medicine (ISM) range from 2.4 to 2.485 GHz and are designed to create so-called Wireless Personal Area Networks (PANs) for interconnecting devices over short distances. distances. BTLE uses a modified version of the Bluetooth stack for communication, whereby a BTLE device and a traditional Bluetooth device are not directly compatible unless one device implements both protocols. Both of these Bluetooth and BTLE standards are supported by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG). This disclosure is presented in the context of an implementation of BTLE using the BTLE part of the Bluetooth v4 specification. However, one skilled in the art will appreciate that the present inventive concepts can be applied to other Bluetooth approaches, such as, for example, the so-called classic Bluetooth definitions, which are also set forth in the Bluetooth v4 specification. In addition, it should be appreciated that the present invention may be applied to technologies that do not conform to the full Bluetooth specification, but which nonetheless behave similarly to Bluetooth.

For example, non-Bluetooth systems that nevertheless use an advertisement setup based on the Bluetooth Low Energy Common Access Protocol (GAP) and thus have an advertisement structure substantially as set forth with FIG. 1 could use techniques with the teachings of the present invention. In FIG. 1 shows an announcement structure in which a peripheral (or slave or remote or secondary) announces its availability as a peripheral (or slave or remote or secondary) during an announcement period, with announcement periods separated by an announcement interval. The announcement may include data to transmit, an indication that there is data to transmit, or no reference to data at all. To accept an announcement, the central (or primary or control) device scans the announcements during the scan window. Multiple scan windows are separated by a scan interval. The relative duration of scan and announcement intervals is changed either by specifying that the interval in one type of device is constant while the other varies, or by specifying that both of these parameters change, and this definition can be established by a standard or set of rules for implementation of the announcement protocol. By providing this relative change in the scan and announcement intervals, it is ensured that even if the initial announcement period does not overlap with the initial scan window, after a certain number of announcement and scan intervals, an announcement period will occur that overlaps with the scan window, resulting in which can establish a connection between the central and peripheral device.

A first example of a device environment 1 in which the ideas of the present invention can be used is shown in FIG. 2. In this example, multiple aerosol delivery devices 2a-2e are present in device environment 1. The various devices among the aerosol providing devices 2 are connected via wireless links, shown in dotted lines 4. However, not every aerosol providing device 2 is directly connected to every other aerosol providing device. Rather, the aerosol delivery devices 2 are connected in a mesh network structure with a scattered type data flow. Thus, it can be seen that in order to transmit a message from the aerosol delivering device 2a to the aerosol delivering device 2d, the message will be transmitted through the aerosol delivering devices 2b and 2c (and optionally also through the aerosol delivering device 2e) to reach the device 2d to provide an aerosol. From some points of view, it may be considered appropriate to describe these interactions as a PICONET piconet as an alternative to using a grid or mesh interaction description. To ensure readability, the term "mesh network" will be used in this description.

To create such a communication mesh structure, a device consistent with the ideas of the present invention may receive more than one person, and thus may belong to more than one BTLE communication link, and, in addition, the device can act as a central or peripheral device in one communication BTLE communication and as a peripheral device in another BTLE communication connection. To manage the simultaneous nature of these different personas, the device of the present invention can be controlled to switch between two persons, such that only one person is selected in the device at any given time. Switching between persons occurs often enough that each communication link is maintained without the devices with which these communication links are formed, while the conclusion is formed that the device has become unavailable and these communication links are closed.

Switching between persons in this device will occur at a time consistent with the requirements of a particular application for the device. There is some element of randomness in the switching, as shown above with respect to FIG. 1. The time intervals during which a random element can operate will, however, be set according to the requirements of the application. For example, in order to provide fast data transfer across a meshed network of devices, person switching occurs at a relatively high frequency. For example, in an implementation based on device interactions associated with users in a temporal location (e.g., when the devices are Electronic Nicotine Delivery devices (END devices) in a social situation), each device may be configured to switch roles every few seconds. On the other hand, to achieve greater energy efficiency, and in cases where the data rate over the mesh network is less important, a relatively lower switching frequency can be used, perhaps reduced in an appropriate context to only switch roles once or twice per hour. In addition, the relative duration of peripheral and central roles can be changed according to factors applicable to the implementation environment. Thus, while the peripheral person is active, the device will send data as part of an announcement packet, while while the central person is active, the device will listen for devices announcing data packets.

In addition, the device according to the present invention may have several central persons that can be used to communicate in different mesh networks or to increase the total number of peripheral devices with which it can communicate at any given time, beyond a set limit given by a particular deployed Bluetooth chipset. These multiple central personas can be implemented using the person switching approach described above, or by implementing multiple BTLE MCUs.

Using such technology, for example, the interconnections between the aerosol providing devices 2 may take the form of an aerosol providing device 2a acting as a central device and an aerosol providing device 2b acting as a peripheral device in the first BTLE relationship. The aerosol providing device 2b can also act as a central element in the second BTLE relationship in which the aerosol providing device 2c acts as a peripheral device. The aerosol providing device 2c may in turn be central to a third communication link BTLE which includes the aerosol providing devices 2d and 2e as peripherals. In addition, the aerosol providing device 2d may also be central to the fourth communication link BTLE, which includes the aerosol providing device 2e as a peripheral device. It should be appreciated that other arrangements may be implemented in which the aerosol delivery devices function as central and peripheral in various possible aerosol delivery device relationships. For example, the connection shown in FIG. 1, if the aerosol providing device 2b functions as a hub in a BTLE communication in which the aerosol providing devices 2a and 2c are peripheral devices, and the aerosol providing device 2d functions as a hub in a relationship in which the aerosol providing device 2c is a peripheral device, and the aerosol providing device 2e functions as the central one in the relationship in which the aerosol providing devices 2c and 2d are peripheral devices. As will be seen from the following discussion, the location of the interconnections for network formation can be determined on an ad hoc basis depending on which aerosol providing devices become central as a result of the interconnection process.

The mesh network approach of the present disclosure allows small packets of data or token frames to be transferred between aerosol providing devices without the need to establish full BTLE communications between aerosol providing devices. Thus, such token frames can be flooded across the mesh network from any two or more aerosol deliverers based on transient or non-persistent relationships of one aerosol deliverer to another aerosol deliverer, where the relationship between the peripheral and host lasts long enough to transmit. and receiving a token frame. This approach does not prevent some or all of the aerosol delivery devices in the mesh network from establishing communication links (also known as device pairing). Such a link-based approach may be used, for example, in circumstances where the amount of data that needs to be transferred between devices to provide aerosol in a mesh network exceeds that which can be accommodated using token frames.

As also shown in FIG. 2, an additional device 6 may be provided. The device 6 does not need to have knowledge or ability with respect to properties that reflect the interoperability of the aerosol delivery devices 2, and instead implements the communication protocol in a conventional manner. For example, the device 6 implements the traditional BTLE interface and can therefore establish a connection 6 with one of the aerosol providing devices 2 having interconnectivity, whereby the device 6 acts as a central device and the aerosol device 2 acts as a peripheral device. Alternatively, the device may use the same connectivity capability to communicate with one or more devices 2 to provide the aerosol.

Accordingly, it will be seen that the approach of the present invention allows a mesh network based on Bluetooth or BTLE to be established without a host that provides a base node for a star-type network topology. The mesh network may communicate with a device outside the mesh network, but this communication may be either continuous or discontinuous, and the device outside the mesh network does not need to play any role in establishing, managing, or configuring the mesh network.

Therefore, by establishing such a mesh network, the various aerosol providing devices 2 can communicate with each other and transmit information to other devices within range using an existing communication protocol such as BTLE. However, as will be clear from the discussion, the device uses a modified form of Bluetooth hardware implementation with Generic Attribute Profile Notification (GATT) to achieve this specialized behavior that reflects connectivity. As will be understood from the present description, this modification can be achieved by implementing a modified hardware, firmware or software implementation of the protocol, for example, using a controller circuit implementation that in many respects corresponds to the standard communication protocol, but includes additional functionality, provided, for example, using a script to achieve the interactions between devices described here. Additional functionality may be introduced using modified hardware which, while including the use of non-standard hardware, does ensure that the hardware can provide both modes on an ongoing basis without the need for separating persons over time. The controller circuit may be a hardware circuit with functionality provided by its configuration, such as, for example, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), or may be a programmable microprocessor (μP) or microcontroller (MCU) running firmware and/or software.

In FIG. 3 schematically illustrates the functional components of each aerosol delivery device 2. Each aerosol delivery device 2 has an antenna 10 for transmitting and receiving BTLE signals. The antenna 10 is connected to the wireless communication interface 12, such as a BTLE control circuit 12 such as a BTLE MCU. The wireless communication interface 12 receives data for transmission and provides the received data to the core device functionality processor 14, which operates, for example, in conjunction with the storage device 16 and/or input/output elements 18 to perform the core computing functionality of the aerosol providing device 2 . Although in FIG. 3 shows that the functional components of the aerosol delivery device 2 communicate on a forward link basis, it should be appreciated that since FIG. 3 is schematic in nature, this description also includes alternative arrangements of functional components, for example based on a bus connection. It should also be appreciated that one or more of the functional components shown may be represented by a single physical component, and that one functional component may be represented by multiple physical components.

With regard to the functional components relating to the core computing functionality of the aerosol providing device 2, it should be appreciated that the nature and use of these components may vary depending on the nature of the device itself. In the example of aerosol delivery device 2, the core computing functionality may include passing or framing token information between aerosol delivery devices, devices monitoring and reporting device charge levels and/or nicotine liquid levels, lost and found interactions, and usage logging. . Thus, it should also be appreciated that the core computing functionality may differ from the user's perception of the core functionality of the device. For example, in the case of an aerosol delivery device, the user-perceived core functionality is likely to be nicotine delivery aerosol generation, with the computing functionality being additional, ancillary, or secondary to this user-perceived core functionality.

Then in FIG. 4 schematically illustrates the protocol structure implemented by the wireless communication interface 12 of each aerosol delivery device 2. The protocol structure shown in Fig. 4, complies with the Bluetooth stack, which includes GATT (Common Attribute Protocol), GAP (Common Access Protocol), SM (Service Manager Protocol), GATT/ATT (Low Energy Attribute Protocol), L2CAP (Logical Control and Adaptation Layer) channel) and the channel layer. In the present examples, the link layer operates on the basis of LERF (Low Power RF). As shown in FIG. 4, the protocol stack can be conceptually divided between the so-called Host and Controller layers. The controller part of the stack consists of the lower layers that are required for physical layer packets and their associated timing. The controller portion of the stack may be implemented as an integrated circuit, such as an SoC (system-on-a-chip) package with a built-in Bluetooth radio.

Layer implementations relevant to understanding the ideas of the present invention include the link layer, L2CAP (Logical Channel Control and Adaptation Layer), GAP Common Access Protocol, and Low Power Attribute Protocol.

The link layer controller is responsible for low-level communication through the physical interface. It manages the sequencing and timing of transmitted and received frames and, using a link layer protocol, communicates with other devices regarding connection parameters and data flow control. It also handles frames received and transmitted while the device is in announcement or scanner modes. The link layer controller also ensures that the functionality of the gateway is preserved to limit exposure and communication with other devices. If filtering is configured, the link layer controller maintains a "white list" of allowed devices and will ignore all communication requests or announcement information from other devices. In addition to providing security functionality, it can also help with energy management. The link-layer controller uses the master controller interface (HCI) to communicate with the upper layers of the stack, unless the layer implementations are co-located.

The Logical Channel Control and Adaptation Protocol (L2CAP) component provides data transfer services for upper layer protocols such as the Security Manager Protocol and the Attribute Protocol. It is responsible for protocol multiplexing and data segmentation into small enough packets for the link layer controller, as well as the demultiplexing and reassembly operation at the other end. The L2CAP protocol has an internal interface to the common access protocol GAP, which defines general procedures related to the discovery of BTLE devices and aspects of communication control when connecting to other BTLE devices. GAP provides an interface for configuring the application and allows you to use various modes of operation, such as announcements or scanning, as well as initiate, establish and manage connections with other devices. Therefore GAP is used to control connections and announcements in Bluetooth. GAP controls device visibility and determines how two devices can (or can't) communicate with each other.

The Low Energy Attribute Protocol (ATT) is optimized for the small packet sizes used in Bluetooth Low Energy and allows an attribute server to provide a set of attributes and their associated attribute values to an attribute client. These attributes can be discovered, read and written by peer devices. The Generic Attribute Protocol (GATT) provides a software framework for using the Low Power Attribute Protocol (ATT).

As will be apparent from the discussions above, the teachings of the present invention use an announcement process to facilitate networking of multiple devices, for example, to allow information to be scattered among an unlimited number of devices in order to propagate data over distance and time.

In the context of the present examples, an application running on a device communicating over the mesh network structure described herein may request or monitor customized scan response payloads in light of the scan response sent by that device. This approach is used in traditional Bluetooth implementations to pass the device name and other identifying information. However, in the present approaches, this scan response, which is defined as a 31-byte data packet, also referred to as a token frame, is used to share an ID associated with a variable that, when read by an application, will trigger a specific response or action. The timing of such requests is shown in FIG. 5. As can be seen from this figure, the scan response request is transmitted by the host during the announcement interval, and the scan response data is provided by the peripheral until the start of the next announcement interval.

By implementing the approach defined by the present inventive concepts, data transmission over the physical layer is indistinguishable from normal BTLE traffic at that layer. In addition, although the higher layer layers are modified to accept the shown interaction of interconnected devices, a device-enabled device without interconnectivity can communicate over BTLE using a device consistent with the teachings of the present invention.

In addition, a device that uses only a conventional BTLE stack (such as device 6 shown in FIG. 2 above) can communicate with an aerosol providing device 2 that uses an interconnectivity approach in accordance with the present invention. The conventional BTLE device can then receive data from the aerosol providing device 2 with mesh connectivity without a BTLE stack in the conventional BTLE device having any knowledge of the mesh network interactions of the aerosol providing devices 2. The data that the conventional BTLE device receives may be generated in the directly connected aerosol providing device 2, or may be generated in the aerosol providing device that was previously connected to the directly connected aerosol providing device 2 via a network, and the data that has been stored or cached in device 2 to provide the aerosol with mesh connectivity. The source of such network-transmitted data may be another interconnected aerosol delivering device 2, or may be another conventional BTLE device that is or has been connected to the interconnected aerosol delivering device over a mesh network.

In FIG. 6 schematically illustrates the behavior of each aerosol providing device 2 with respect to controlling the dual nature of the persons in each aerosol providing device 2 for establishing both central and peripheral connections. Since the BTLE protocol provides for two modes of operation at the presentation layer, one of which corresponds to each of the roles of the center and the periphery, the aerosol device 2 in the present examples alternates between these two modes to allow broadcasting of both advertisers to announce its capabilities as a peripheral device and for the activity of the observer to search for other capable of being peripheral devices for providing an aerosol, to which it can be connected as a central one. At the same time, acting as an observer, the aerosol provider can act on any received broadcaster announcement to establish a connection as a hub, in accordance with the normal behavior of the BTLE protocol, for example, as outlined in the General Access Profile (GAP) of the BTLE protocol. At the same time, by performing a broadcast to the announcement devices, the broadcaster will be able to establish a connection as a peripheral device with monitoring of the aerosol providing device, considering that it will become the central one. As discussed above, this time sharing between the central and peripheral personas is performed after connections have been established between the devices. This ensures that one device can operate in both modes with continuous, albeit temporary, multiplexing based on a single MCU BTLE microcontroller in the device.

Thus, the interoperable aerosol delivery device of the present example uses the standard GATT (Generic Attribute Profile) specification of the BTLE protocol in combination with a modified common access profile (GAP) to adopt two modes of operation associated with dual by the nature of the persona of the aerosol delivery device. As will be discussed below, the state of the aerosol delivery device alternates between announcing as peripheral and listening as central to facilitate connectivity to other aerosol delivery devices in both central and peripheral modes. Typically, a device will already have a mesh identification indication, in which devices can be pre-programmed to use a particular Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) associated with a particular mesh device (a "service" in BTLE terms) for devices intended to participate. For example, all Electronic Nicotine Delivery devices (END) of a certain brand, range, or manufacturer can be programmed to use the same UUID. In this context, to identify the active person or mode, the aerosol delivery device uses an identification code that uniquely identifies the aerosol delivery device within the mesh network. The ID and UUID (actually the Mesh ID or Group ID) are stored in the firmware of the device and are inserted into announcement packets along with the data constituting the marker frame and may also be specified in scan response requests and response messages. scanning. as part of announcements within the Common Access Profile (GAP) interaction with and between devices.

When operating as a central device, the aerosol dispenser can assume the states of Scanner, Initiator, and Master, and when operating as a peripheral device, the aerosol dispenser can assume the states of Advertiser (advertising device) and Slave (slave device).

Fig. 6 also illustrates the relative announcement and observation times of several aerosol delivery devices. The illustrated approach tends to avoid (but not necessarily eliminate) multiple aerosol providing devices in range of each other broadcasting simultaneously. In the present example, the duration of the watch period is controlled to be in the range of 0.01 ms to 5 s, and the announcement period has a fixed duration that can be in the range of 0.5 s to 10 s. In other examples, the duration of the announcements may also be variable, and the duration of the observation may fall within another range, an overlapping range, or a subset of the exemplary range given above. Such time shifting can be achieved in several ways, for example, by coordination between aerosol deliverers, or by each aerosol deliverer, using interval length adjustment, for example, to provide non-uniform time spacing of each mode transition. Such interval length adjustments can be achieved by selecting for each interval one length from among the possible interval lengths, or by using some form of interval length randomizer.

When the aerosol providing device is observed to establish a role as the central aerosol providing device in the mesh network, the aerosol providing device acts no differently than the non-mesh capable aerosol providing device when listening to announcements from a potential peripheral aerosol providing device. Thus, an aerosol providing device operating in this mode can also become central to a conventional BTLE device without mesh network capability in accordance with the teachings of the present invention.

When an aerosol dispenser is advertised for the purpose of establishing a role as an edge in a mesh network, it advertises the use of a structure based on the BTLE GAP data. However, the structure of the BTLE GAP is modified to include mesh-specific information that can be recognized by the mesh-capable device that receives the announcement. Mesh-specific information may include fields such as:

identifier of the advertised aerosol delivery device;

packet sequence number for a packet waiting to be transmitted from this aerosol delivery device, this is used to avoid duplicates - depending on the application, this may simply be the packet sequence for packets coming from this aerosol delivery device (for example, when the application requires that only the token payload or frame from the advertising spray delivery device has been downloaded to a variety of other spray delivery devices), but it can be made unique for a given mesh network (Group ID), time window, and/or other uniqueness domain, as required by the application;

the ID of the packet's original aerosol granter having that packet sequence number to reflect that the token frame currently being transmitted may have been created on a different aerosol granter than the one currently transmitting it;

the identifier of the destination aerosol provider for the packet having this packet sequence number, depending on the implementation, this can be a single aerosol provider (corresponding to some form of routed operation) or "all" aerosol providers (corresponding to flooding type operations);

the group ID of the originating aerosol delivery device for a packet having this sequence number, which is used to allow multiple mesh networks to coexist in the same physical space (as explained above, this group ID usually uses the BTLE Protocol's Universally Unique Identifier (UUID), although the other the registered group ID can be determined and used if necessary);

lifetime or expiration time of a packet having this sequence number

payload, data specific to a particular application - for example, data related to the application of the END device for delivering nicotine (Electronic Nicotine Delivery devices).

According to the data processing approach of the BTLE protocol, if a given application payload element is too large for a single packet, that payload element is broken into pieces and distributed over multiple packets before being reassembled at each destination device to provide the aerosol. In such applications, communication between aerosol delivery devices can be established to provide more control over the transmission for this larger amount of data.

Fig. 7 schematically illustrates the connection diagrams between several devices N1, N2, N3 and N4 for providing an aerosol. In this illustration, the aerosol delivery device N1 is out of range for direct communication with the aerosol delivery device N4. The various modes of operation of the aerosol providing devices are indicated by a control chip (CC) 22 and a network chip (MC - mesh chip) 24 of each of the aerosol providing devices N1 to N4. The control IC is an aerosol delivery device microcontroller (MCU) operable to communicate with a conventional BTLE device such as device 6 shown in FIG. 2. The network chip is a microcontroller (MCU) of the aerosol dispenser operating in both central and peripheral modes for communication over a mesh network.

In the example of FIG. 7, the aerosol dispenser N1 has a bit set in the announcement data field indicating that it has data to send. The announcement and monitoring schedule in each aerosol dispenser causes the aerosol dispenser N2 to be the first aerosol dispenser in direct range with N1 to listen as the central device of the subsequent aerosol dispenser N1 having the announcement data field set. Thus, the aerosol supply device N2 when it receives announcement data in the central mode that N1 announces while in the peripheral mode. This announcement data received by N2 may be used by N2 in association with an application running or otherwise associated with N2. In addition, or alternatively, the aerosol dispenser N2 may cache announcement data ready for further transmission as announcement data in the future when the aerosol dispenser N2 assumes its role as a peripheral person. Thus, announcement data that originated in N1 can be transmitted further from N2 as announcement data, which is then received by the aerosol supply device N3 while N2 is announced as a peripheral device and N3 listens as a central one. The announcement data originating from N1 can then be used and/or passed on by N3, eventually arriving at N4 in the same way.

It should be noted that in this embodiment, the announcement data effectively floods the mesh network. Thus, if it turns out that N1 is listening as the central device, at the same time that N2 is advertised as a peripheral device, the announcement data will return to N1, and also pass further through the mesh network to N3. In this case, either the aerosol delivery device N1, or any application running on or in conjunction with the N1 device, may simply ignore the returned announcement data. In some embodiments, the aerosol dispenser or application may use the returned announcement data in some way, such as using the time between transmission and reception as some sort of random interval generator or for mesh network diagnostics.

As explained above, it is possible to use a more structured format for transmission over the mesh network, using established communications between devices to provide the aerosol. Under such circumstances, each pair of aerosol deliverers will communicate over an established connection, and the person switching on each aerosol deliverer will provide data received over the link, of which one person is an element, which can then be transmitted further using the link, the element of which is another person.

Controlling whether data is transmitted to each aerosol delivery device (flooding routing) or whether data is transmitted only to selected aerosol delivery devices (routing) can be achieved in several ways. If data is to be automatically transmitted to all aerosol delivery devices without restriction, then this may be the default state configured in the aerosol delivery devices. If data is to be transmitted only to aerosol delivery devices that are currently active on the mesh network, then this can be achieved either as the default behavior set in the aerosol delivery devices, or on an application-specific basis where the application supports the mesh network and provides control information in the communication stack to indicate the degree of data transfer. If data is to be transmitted only to specific aerosol delivery devices, this can be achieved on an application-specific basis, where the application is mesh aware and provides control information to the communication stack to indicate the degree of data transfer. The present examples are configured to operate using a flooding approach, whereby data is automatically forwarded to all currently existing devices in the mesh network.

Fig. 8 provides a further illustration of the mesh network behavior between aerosol delivery devices. This example shows a larger number of aerosol delivery devices N11 to N19. The illustration in FIG. 8 represents this snapshot in time, whereby the different aerosol delivery devices are shown as being currently received by the different devices, the respective peripherals and central persons. While illustrated in FIG. 8, three aerosol providing devices have been configured in the central mode, these devices are the aerosol providing devices N12, N16 and N19, the rest of the aerosol providing devices are configured in the peripheral mode. As will be appreciated from the above discussion, for any particular case where the same aerosol delivery devices are present at the same locations, the exact number and identification of the aerosol delivery devices that become center mode will depend on such factors. , as the scheduling of each aerosol providing device of its announcement/observation periods and the relative location of each aerosol providing device compared to any other aerosol providing device that is already configured for either the central or peripheral mode. The transmission of the data-transmitted marker frame in the figure is illustrated by the flag transmitted on the figure from N11, the device sends this data-transmitted marker frame in its announcement data to the device N12, which will receive this announcement data while listening in the center mode. This marker frame will later be included in N12's device announcement data when N12 assumes its peripheral persona. Thus, the token frame may travel further through the mesh network and eventually hit each aerosol dispenser in the mesh network at least once.

As will be appreciated from the discussion above, mesh networks can dynamically change depending on the number and position of aerosol delivery devices in the mesh network. For example, as aerosol delivery devices move away from the rest of the mesh network, they eventually lose contact with all aerosol delivery devices in the mesh network and leave the network. Similarly, an aerosol delivery device that is deactivated or enters a power-saving mode without using wireless communication loses communication with other aerosol delivery devices in the mesh network and leaves the network. In addition, new aerosol delivery devices that were not previously part of the mesh network will be able to join the mesh network as and when they enter the range of the aerosol delivery device in the mesh network, or, when they are turned on, while in the range of the aerosol delivery device. in a mesh network. In addition, as will be understood from the discussion of the above person switch, an aerosol dispenser already within the mesh network and operating as a peripheral within the mesh network will also operate at other times as a hub within the mesh network. In an embodiment in which the mesh network receives communication links whereby particular aerosol deliverers have specific roles as central in some links and as peripherals in others, if the aerosol deliverer then changes location relative to the aerosol deliverers in the mesh network, it may leave the mesh network as a result, since all established links may stop working in range to the new location. Such an aerosol dispenser will then resume both surveillance and announcement attempts until it establishes one or more new communication links in other mesh-connected aerosol dispensers.

For a specialist, it is obvious that the Bluetooth and BTLE protocols provide a secure communication link between nodes. This does not apply to the transmission of token frames based solely on declarations in the form of declaration data, unless such transmission of token frames results in the establishment of communication links. In the present examples, even where communication links are used, aerosol delivery devices can be configured to establish such links without requiring user input to establish trust between different aerosol delivery devices or other devices. Rather, in the present examples, devices for providing a particular type of aerosol may be configured to pre-trust all other devices for providing that particular type of aerosol. For example, each aerosol delivery device may be configured to trust all other devices that are identified as aerosol delivery devices from a given manufacturer, group of manufacturers, given brand, group of brands, model, group of models, or as compatible with a given aerosol delivery device of a given standard or group of standards.

Such a trust template can be supplemented with self-regulating means for the amount of personal data that the device stores/is allowed to transfer. For example, the aerosol dispenser may be configured by the owner-user such that it does not retain or share any information that identifies the owner. This will not prevent the Electronic Nicotine Delivery devices from communicating with other END devices to communicate information that can be used for lost/found functionality, or will not prevent the END device from communicating information about the END device itself to enable group communication between devices. END of the same make or model, such as discussed below.

In other examples, trust may be an explicit capability for the user, whereby the user may be required to actively accept or request a communication link in order to communicate with another aerosol delivery device.

When a particular aerosol delivery device or other device is configured by the user, for example, to communicate with the user's legacy BTLE device such as a smartphone, tablet, or tablet, the trust relationship between the user's device with mesh connectivity and the legacy BTLE device can be secured in the same manner. , like other traditional BTLE pairings, to establish a communication link.

Thus, it will be understood that using the approach set forth in the teachings of the present invention, a device can be provided that is capable of communicating over a mesh network with other similar devices by adopting a dual person structure in which the device can operate on a time division basis. both as a master (central) and as a slave (peripheral) for communication with other similar devices mentioned, as well as as a slave/peripheral device in relation to a traditional device without the possibility of working in dual person mode.

This approach can be used to facilitate device-to-device interaction between a range of different devices for a target range. As discussed above, examples of devices that can be equipped for such device-to-device interactions using the mesh or PICONET piconet approach of the examples above include electronic nicotine delivery devices (END devices).

The possibility of mesh interconnectivity of the aerosol providing devices 2A and one or more other devices as described above can be considered as a connectionless interaction, in which connectionless state packets are created, transmitted and received by each device in accordance with the described above examples with reference to FIG. 18.

In the exemplary system, the aerosol delivery device 2a is configured to operate the wireless communication interface 12 in a listening mode. In other words, as described above, for a given aerosol delivering device 2a, the center person is active, whereby the aerosol delivering device 2a will listen to announcement data packets of other devices. While operating in listening mode, the aerosol providing device 2a may receive data in the form of one or more data packets from the wireless communication interface of another aerosol providing device 2b. In this exemplary system, data received from the other aerosol providing device 2b is transmitted to the other aerosol providing device 2b as part of an announcement burst. Alternatively, the announcement packet may be transmitted by another aerosol providing device 2b, and in response, the aerosol providing device 2a transmits a connectionless status request packet to the other aerosol providing device 2b. The data received from the other aerosol providing device 2b is then transmitted to the aerosol providing device 2a as part of a response packet in a connectionless state.

The data received from the other aerosol providing device 2b includes information describing the usage characteristics of the other aerosol providing device 2b. For example, the usage characteristics may comprise one or more values selected from the group including: battery properties, aerosol generation properties, aerosol environment properties, aerosol generation event properties, and erroneous or abnormal behavior properties.

The battery properties may include the current state of charge of the battery of the aerosol dispenser 2b, the last time the battery was charged, the number of charge cycles the battery has undergone, the duration of the last charge cycle, the average charge cycle time, and the desired battery threshold before charging.

The aerosol generation properties may include average puff duration, total puff duration, total number of puffs, number of puffs per power profile (e.g., number of puffs for a high power profile and number of puffs for a low power profile), currently selected power profile, and the average number of uses of the aerosol device 2b per day.

The properties of the aerosol medium may include the type and/or taste of the cartomizer currently in use, as well as the type and/or taste of the most commonly used cartomizer with the aerosol delivery device 2b.

The aerosol generation event properties may include the average boot time or run time of the aerosol dispenser 2b, the average boot time or run time, the last event when the overheat protection mode was triggered, and the number of events when the overheat protection mode was triggered.

The erroneous or abnormal behavior properties may include error codes generated by the aerosol delivery device 2b, such as the number of puffs when the puff received from the user was too short for the aerosol delivery device to generate a response from the device (e.g., no aerosol was generated ), the time at which each error code was generated, and details of any abnormal or unexpected behavior from the aerosol delivery device 2b.

The usage characteristics of the respective aerosol delivering device are recorded and stored in the storage device during the use of the respective aerosol delivering device. For example, the aerosol providing device 2b generates usage characteristics during use of the aerosol providing device 2b, and stores the generated usage characteristics in its own memory before transmitting the usage characteristics in a data packet to the aerosol providing device 2a. Similarly, the aerosol providing device 2a generates its own usage characteristics during the use of the aerosol providing device 2a, and stores its generated usage characteristics in the storage device 16.

In the present example, the data received from the other aerosol delivering device 2b optionally includes information about the aerosol delivering device 2b such as product type, lot number, serial number, and/or the universally unique identifier (UUID) of the aerosol delivering device 2b. aerosol delivery device (or, more generally, any information identifying the aerosol delivery device 2b) and the location of the aerosol delivery device 2b when the data was transmitted by the aerosol delivery device 2b, for example in the form of GPS coordinates or grid reference cards.

The aerosol providing device 2a stores the data received from the other aerosol providing device 2b in its storage device 16. The data may also be timestamped to record when the data was received from the other aerosol providing device 2b. The processor 14 of the aerosol providing device 2a may also determine whether the received data included the location of the aerosol providing device 2b when the data was transmitted by the aerosol providing device 2b, and if not, the processor 14 may edit the received data to include the location of the device 2a for providing an aerosol when the data has been received, for example in the form of GPS coordinates or map gridding. After a predetermined amount of time, such as 1 hour, 24 hours, or 7 days, has elapsed since the data has been stored in the storage device 16, the data may be deleted from the storage device 16.

In the present example, before storing the received data in the memory 16, the processor 14 of the aerosol delivery device 2a optionally determines whether the data from that particular aerosol delivery device 2b has already been stored in the memory 16, for example, by searching the received data by serial number. and/or a universally unique identifier (UUID) of the device 2b to provide the aerosol from which they were received and search the memory 16 for data associated with the same serial number and/or UUID. If it is determined that data from that particular aerosol delivery device 2b is already stored in the memory 16, the processor 14 of the aerosol delivery device 2a may be configured to overwrite the data from that particular aerosol delivery device 2b that is already stored in the memory 16c. replacing data being the latest received data from that particular aerosol supply device 2b. Alternatively, the processor 14 of the aerosol deliverer 2a may be configured to discard the data that is the most recent received from that particular aerosol deliverer 2b, or add the data that is the latest received from that particular aerosol deliverer 2b to data received from this particular aerosol delivery device 2b already stored in the memory 16. For example, if the data already stored in the memory 16 is from a first time period and the most recently received data is from a second, different time period, then the last received data can be added to the data already stored in the storage device 16 to provide further resolution and detail of usage characteristics for the aerosol providing device 2b.

In the present example, the aerosol providing device 2a may be configured to store data from a predetermined number of aerosol providing devices in its storage device 16, for example, 5 or 10 devices. Accordingly, before storing the received data in the memory 16, the processor 14 of the aerosol providing device 2a, for example, determines the number of aerosol providing devices from which data has previously been received and stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol providing device 2a, for example, by searching for data serial number and/or universally unique identifier (UUID) of the aerosol delivery device, the data is received and the number of unique serial numbers or UUIDs that exist in the storage device 16 is counted. previously received less than a predetermined number, the processor 14 of the aerosol providing device 2a is configured to store the data received from the other aerosol providing device 2b in its storage device 16. If it is determined that the number of aerosol providing devices from which the data have been received before, greater than or equal to a predetermined amount, the processor 14 of the aerosol delivery device 2a is configured to determine the oldest data packet in the memory 16, for example, by checking the timestamp associated with each data packet to find the data packet with the smallest recently received timestamp, thereby indicating that the data packet was last stored in the storage device 16. The processor 14 is then configured to delete the data packet that the processor 14 has determined to be the oldest, and the data received from the other aerosol device 2b is stored in the memory 16 in place of the deleted data packet. In a further example, the aerosol providing device 2a may have a maximum time limit for storing data, with a maximum number of devices about which data can be stored, depending on the size of the stored data about each device. In this example, the same general principles for deleting the oldest stored data can be applied using a test of the available remaining storage space in place of (or in addition to) the number of devices that data has previously been acquired and stored.

During operation in listening mode, the aerosol providing device 2a can receive data from the respective wireless communication interfaces of a plurality of aerosol providing devices, such as aerosol providing devices 2b-e. In such an example, the aerosol providing device 2a is configured to receive data from one aerosol providing device, determine whether to store the received data, and store the received data if required, as previously described, before continuing to receive data from the next aerosol providing device. The process may be repeated for each data packet received from another aerosol providing device, provided that the wireless communication interface 12 of the aerosol providing device 2a is in a listening mode. Optionally, the wireless communication interface 12 of the aerosol delivering device 2a is configured to operate in a listening mode by default, and will operate in a listening mode unless configured by the processor 14 of the aerosol delivering device 2a to another mode.

The examples described above, in which the aerosol delivery device 2a receives and stores data from other aerosol delivery devices, allows the aerosol delivery device 2a to collect data from any other aerosol delivery device that is within a signal transmission range of, for example, up to 1 m, 10m, 100m or more.

The wireless communication interface 12 of the aerosol providing device 2a is used to generate an announcement packet in an unconnected state that includes information related to the identity and the announcement issuing state of the aerosol providing device 2a. Information related to the identification of the aerosol delivering device 2a may include a serial number and/or a universally unique identifier (UUID) of the aerosol delivering device 2a. The announcement packet in the connectionless state is then transmitted via the wireless communication interface 12 .

In response to the transmission of the announcement packet in the connectionless state, the request packet in the connectionless state from the remote wireless device 6 is received via the wireless communication interface 12. The remote wireless device 6 may be a mobile communication device such as a mobile phone, smartphone, slate or tablet, a host device or gateway, or a beacon such as a BLE beacon. The mobile communication device 6 may have a specific application installed to communicate with the aerosol delivery device.

In response to receiving the request packet, the processor 14 of the aerosol providing device 2a is configured to create, using the wireless communication interface 12, a response packet in an unconnected state, and transmit the response packet through the wireless communication interface 12.

At least one of the announcement packet and the response packet includes received data from the memory 16 and data generated by the aerosol providing device 2a and stored in the memory 16. In the present example, the data generated by the device 2a for providing an aerosol include information describing the characteristics of the use of the device 2a for providing an aerosol. For example, the usage characteristics may comprise one or more values selected from the group including: battery properties, aerosol generation properties, aerosol environment properties, aerosol generation event properties, and erroneous or abnormal behavior properties. The data generated by the aerosol providing device 2a may include the same information as the data received from the other aerosol providing device 2b, or may include different information. For example, data received from another aerosol delivering device 2b may only contain the properties of the aerosol generating event for that particular aerosol delivering device 2b, while data generated by the aerosol delivering device 2a may include usage characteristics for the aerosol delivering device 2a. providing an aerosol including values for each property of battery properties, aerosol generation properties, aerosol environment properties, aerosol generation event properties, and erroneous or anomalous behavior properties. The processor 14 of the aerosol providing device 2a can also determine the location of the aerosol providing device 2a at the point in time when the data is to be transmitted and edit the data to be transmitted to include, for example, the location of the aerosol providing device 2a in the form GPS coordinates or binding to the coordinate grid of the map.

In the present example, at least one of the packets from the announcement packet and the response packet, which includes the received data from the memory 16 and the data generated by the aerosol providing device 2a and stored in the memory 16, is optionally not included in all received data that is stored in memory 16. For example, processor 14 of aerosol delivery device 2a may be configured to send all data stored in memory 16 relating to the usage characteristics of its own aerosol delivery device 14, but only sample data from the received data is stored in the memory 16. The sample data may contain only selected values, such as only battery properties or only aerosol properties, or may contain values from each group of usage characteristics, but with a lower level of detail, such that less than all received data is stored in the memory 16. For example, if the received data contains 10 values for error codes generated by the aerosol dispenser 2b, the processor 14 may be configured to include only 2 to 5 values for the error codes in the transmitted data packet . Alternatively, or in addition, processor 14 may be configured to include, for example, only every second, third, tenth, or hundredth value for each or particular usage characteristic. The processor may be configured to include, for example, only 10 values for each usage characteristic. In this case, the processor is configured to determine the number of values for each usage characteristic in the received data and divide that value by 10 to determine the interval from which the values should be taken. Alternatively, processor 14 may be configured to receive only one or more of an average, maximum, minimum, average, and/or modal value for each usage characteristic. The processor 14 may also be configured to include in the data to be stored and/or transmitted any values that represent anomalies or outliers. For example, processor 14 may be configured to include an average value for a given usage characteristic along with any value that is above or below a predetermined value, such as two standard deviations greater than or less than the mean.

The examples described above ensure that the remote wireless device 6 is capable of receiving data that has been received from a plurality of different aerosol providing devices 2a, 2b while only needing to interact with one aerosol providing device 2a. This allows the remote wireless device to receive data from multiple aerosol delivery devices while being within the transmission range of only one aerosol delivery device. The remote wireless device 6 may be fixed to a specific location, such as a wall of a building or a billboard. The remote wireless device 6 may then receive data directly from any aerosol delivery device that is within the transmission range of the remote wireless device 6, while the received data could be from a variety of different aerosol delivery devices. Thus, the remote wireless device 6 can capture data from a variety of different aerosol delivery devices for which the remote wireless device 6 is out of range. In addition, the consumer or owner of each aerosol delivery device 2a is unaware of any data transmissions or receptions taking place.

The remote wireless device 6 stores the data received from the aerosol providing device 2a in a storage device associated with the remote wireless device 6. Alternatively, the remote wireless device 6 may be an intermediate device, and can match and transmit the data received from the aerosol providing device to another device using a conventional wireless protocol such as Bluetooth, Bluetooth Low Energy, WiFi, or over a cellular network.

As described above with respect to when the aerosol providing device 2a receives data from another aerosol providing device 2b, the remote wireless device 6 may timestamp the received data to record when the data was received from the aerosol providing device 2a. The remote wireless device 6 can also determine whether the received data includes the location of the aerosol providing device 2a when the data was transmitted by the aerosol providing device 2a, and if not, the remote wireless device 6 can edit the received data to include the location of the remote wireless device 6 when the data has been received, for example in the form of GPS coordinates or map gridding. Optionally, after a predetermined amount of time, such as 1 hour or 24 hours, has elapsed since the data was stored in the storage device of the remote wireless device 6, the data is deleted from the storage device of the remote wireless device 6.

Alternatively, before storing the received data in the memory of the remote wireless device 6, the remote wireless device 6 determines whether data for any of the aerosol delivery devices included in the received data has already been stored in the memory of the remote wireless device 6, for example, by searching the received data by the serial number and/or the universally unique identifier (UUID) of each aerosol delivery device from which it was received, and searching the memory of the remote wireless device 6 for data associated with the same serial number and/or UUID . If it is determined that data from a particular aerosol delivery device is already stored in the storage device of the remote wireless device 6, the remote wireless device 6 can be configured to overwrite data originating from that particular aerosol delivery device that is already stored in the memory device with data that has been taken last from this particular aerosol delivery device. Alternatively, the remote wireless device 6 may be configured to discard data that was most recently received from that particular aerosol delivery device and that was most recently received from that particular aerosol delivery device, or to add data that was most recently received and originated from of that particular aerosol delivery device to data from that particular aerosol delivery device already stored in the storage device. For example, if the data already stored in the memory of the remote wireless device 6 is from a first time period, and the most recently received data is from a second, different time period, the data already stored in the memory of the remote wireless device 6 may be the latest received data may be added to provide additional resolution and detail of usage characteristics for a particular aerosol delivery device.

The location data for each aerosol delivery device in the data received by the remote wireless device 6 may be used to determine the movement of each aerosol delivery device and their respective owner. For example, if each data packet from a particular aerosol dispenser 2a contains location information and a timestamp, the remote wireless device 6 can generate a history of where the aerosol dispenser 2a was at certain points in time and determine if there are any patterns, for example, if the aerosol dispenser 2a was in a particular location at the same time each day of the week, thereby suggesting the workplace or home of the owner of the aerosol dispenser 2a. In another example, the devices that originate the data in each data packet received by the remote wireless device 6 can be used to determine any interaction patterns between the individual devices for providing an aerosol. For example, if each data packet received by the remote wireless device 6 from a particular aerosol device 2a always or regularly includes data originating from another particular aerosol device 2b, the remote wireless device 6 can determine that the users of those particular two of the aerosol delivery devices 2a, 2b are friends or colleagues who regularly interact with each other or that the users of these particular two aerosol delivery devices 2a, 2b live in a similar place and regularly diverge from each other. The location information and timestamps associated with the data from each aerosol delivery device can also be used to assist in this determination.

Fig. 9 illustrates a method for an aerosol delivery device. In step S9-1, the wireless communication interface 12 of the aerosol providing device 2a is configured to operate in a listening mode. In step S9-2, the wireless communication interface 12 of the aerosol providing device 2a receives data from the wireless communication interface of the other aerosol providing device 2b. In step S9-3, the received data is stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol supply device 2a. In step S9-4, an announcement packet in a connectionless state that includes information related to the identification data and the announcement issuing state of the aerosol providing device 2a is created using the wireless communication interface 12 of the aerosol providing device 2a. In step S9-5, the announcement packet is transmitted via the wireless communication interface 12 . In step S9-6, a connectionless status request packet from the remote wireless device 6 is received via the wireless connection interface 12 of the aerosol providing device 2a. In step S9-7, the wireless communication interface 12 of the aerosol providing device 2a is used to create a response packet in a connectionless state, and in step S9-8, the response packet is transmitted through the wireless communication interface 12 of the aerosol providing device 2a. In this embodiment, at least the response packet includes data received from another aerosol providing device 2b, which is stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol providing device 2a, and data generated by the aerosol providing device 2a, which is also stored in the storage device 16 of the device 2a for providing an aerosol (although the received data may also be included in the announcement packet).

It should be appreciated that although steps S9-4 to S9-8 have been described and shown to be performed after steps S9-1 to S9-3, steps S9-4 to S9-8 may be performed at any time with respect to to steps S9-1 to S9-3. That is, for example, an announcement burst in a connectionless state may be generated and transmitted on a periodic basis, and this may occur before or after the aerosol providing device 2a receives data from the wireless communication interface of the other aerosol providing device 2b.

The method illustrated above focuses on the transmission of response packets from the device 2a to provide an aerosol. However, it should be appreciated that the aerosol providing device 2b (or any other aerosol providing device) may transmit response packets to the wireless device 6. For example, before step S9-6, the wireless device 6 identifies aerosol providing devices that are within range of the wireless device. device 6 (for example, by measuring the signal strength of the announcement bursts transmitted in step S9-5 and determining that the aerosol providing device is within range if the measured signal strength is greater than or equal to a threshold value). Accordingly, the wireless device 6 transmits connectionless status request packets to the identified aerosol providing devices (this may be via a broadcast or unicast signal). Each aerosol providing device subsequently receives a connectionless status request packet in step S9-6, and each aerosol providing device follows steps S9-7 and S9-8. The wireless device 6 subsequently receives response packets in an unconnected state from the aerosol providing devices.

In addition, it should also be appreciated that the transmission of a connectionless status request packet from the wireless device 6 cannot be triggered by the receipt of the announcement packet in step S9-5 by the wireless device 6. Instead, the wireless device 6 may periodically transmit a status request packet without establishing connection that triggers any aerosol providing device that receives a connectionless status request packet to send its connectionless status response packet (ie, to perform step S9-7). In this case, before step S9-7, the aerosol providing device determines whether it is within range of the wireless device 6 (for example, by measuring the signal strength of the request packet transmitted from the wireless device 6 and determining that the aerosol providing device is within range if the measured signal level is greater than or equal to the threshold value).

In addition, it should be appreciated that, in other embodiments, steps S9-5 to S9-8 may be omitted. For example, if the announcement packet generated in step S9-4 includes data received from the aerosol providing device 2b, after step S9-5, the transmitted advertisement packet is received by the wireless device 6. The wireless device 6 is configured to identify (and optionally store ) received data related to aerosol delivering device 2b in addition to data related to aerosol delivering device 2a from the announcement package.

In FIG. 10 illustrates a method for an aerosol delivery device, which is optionally part of the method shown in FIG. 9. As can be seen in FIG. 10, steps S10-1, S10-2 and S10-8 of the method illustrated in FIG. 10 correspond respectively to steps S9-1, S9-2, and S9-3 of the method illustrated in FIG. 9. Accordingly, after completion of step S10-8, the method may continue to step S9-4 of the method illustrated in FIG. 9. Alternatively, the method illustrated in FIG. 10 is repeated until the predetermined time is continued before the method proceeds to step S9-4 of the method illustrated in FIG. 9. In step S10-1, the wireless communication interface 12 of the aerosol providing device 2a is configured to operate in the listening mode. In step S10-2, the wireless communication interface 12 of the aerosol providing device 2a receives data from the wireless communication interface of the other aerosol providing device 2b. In step S10-3, it is determined whether data from the other aerosol providing device 2b is currently stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol providing device 2a, for example, the processor 14 of the aerosol providing device 2a can be configured to search the received data for the serial number and/or a universally unique identifier (UUID) of the device 2b for providing the aerosol from which they were derived and searching the memory 16 for data associated with the same serial number and/or UUID. If it is determined that the data from this other aerosol providing device 2b is currently stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol providing device 2a, the method proceeds to step S10-4 where the data from the other aerosol providing device 2b currently stored in the storage device 16 of the aerosol supply device 2a are removed. Then, the method proceeds to step S10-8, where the received data is stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol supply device 2a.

Alternatively, if it is determined in step S10-3 that data from another aerosol providing device 2b is not currently stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol providing device 2a, the method proceeds to step S10-5 where the number of aerosol providing devices is determined, from which data has previously been received and stored in the memory of the aerosol supply device. For example, processor 14 of aerosol delivering device 2a may be configured to determine the number of aerosol delivering devices from which data has previously been received and stored in memory 16 of aerosol delivering device 2a by looking up the data by the serial number and/or UUID of the device. providing the aerosol from which they were received and counting the number of unique serial numbers or UUIDs that exist in the storage device 16. The method proceeds to step S10-5 where it is determined whether the number of aerosol providing devices from which the data was received and stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol delivery device 2a greater than or equal to a predetermined number. If it is determined that the number of aerosol providing devices from which data has been previously received and stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol providing device 2a is greater than or equal to a predetermined number, the method proceeds to step S10-7 where the oldest data is deleted from the memory. device 16 of device 2a for providing an aerosol. For example, the processor 14 of the aerosol dispenser 2a may be configured to check the timestamp associated with each data packet stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol dispenser 2a to determine which of the data packets is the oldest. The processor 14 in this case is configured to remove the data packet that is determined to be the oldest. Then, the method proceeds to step S10-8, where the received data is stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol supply device 2a. Alternatively, if it is determined in step S10-3 that the number of aerosol providing devices from which data has been previously received and stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol providing device 2a is less than a predetermined number, the method proceeds directly to step S10-8 where the received data is stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol supply device 2a.

Thus, the method illustrated in FIG. 10 limits the amount of data that is stored in the memory 16 of the aerosol dispenser 2a while ensuring that the memory 16 of the aerosol dispenser 2a stores only the latest data from every other aerosol dispenser. This also reduces the amount of memory required in the device 2a for providing the aerosol.

When the method illustrated in FIG. 10 continues with the method illustrated in FIG. 9, this ensures that the data transmitted to the remote wireless device 6 is taken from the most recent interactions with other aerosol delivery devices. It also limits the amount of data that must be transmitted to the remote wireless device 6, thereby reducing power requirements for the aerosol dispenser and reducing the amount of time it takes to transfer data. This increases the likelihood that data will be successfully received by the remote wireless device 6 while the aerosol dispenser 2a and the remote wireless device 6 are within transmission range of each other, for example up to 1 m, 10 m, 100 m or more. . For example, the user may carry the aerosol dispenser 2a in their hand or pocket, and the aerosol dispenser 2a may transmit data to the remote wireless device 6 while the consumer passes or otherwise moves past and within the transmission range of the remote wireless device 6 without notifications to the consumer about the ongoing interaction.

Therefore, from one point of view, the method of the aerosol supply apparatus has been described. The method comprises operating the wireless communication interface of the aerosol providing device in a listening mode. During operation in listening mode, data is received from the wireless communication interface of another aerosol delivery device. The received data is stored in the memory of the aerosol supply device. A connectionless-state announcement packet that includes information related to the identification and announcement issuing state of the aerosol delivery device is created using the wireless communication interface of the aerosol delivery device and transmitted through the wireless communication interface. A connectionless status request packet is received from the remote wireless device via the wireless communication interface. In response to receiving the request packet, a connectionless response packet is generated using the wireless communication interface, and the response packet is transmitted via the wireless communication interface. At least one of the announcement packet and the response packet includes received data from the storage device and data generated by the aerosol providing device and stored in the storage device.

It should be appreciated that while the embodiments of the invention described above have generally been described with respect to a wireless interface that uses Bluetooth LE, the principles of the present disclosure are not limited to using a specific wireless interface. For example, other implementations may be based on a Wi-Fi direct link interface or any other radio interface.

The various embodiments of the invention described herein are presented only to aid in understanding and learning the claimed features. These embodiments are presented only as a representative example of embodiments and are not exhaustive and/or exclusive. It should be appreciated that the advantages, embodiments, examples, functions, features, structures and/or other aspects described herein should not be construed as limiting the scope of the disclosure defined by the claims or limiting the equivalents of the claims, and that that other embodiments of the invention may be used, and modifications may be made without departing from the scope and/or essence of the claims.

Additional examples consistent with the teachings of the present invention are set forth in the following numbered paragraphs:

[Principle 1] A method implemented by an aerosol supply device, comprising the steps of:

controlling a wireless communication interface of the aerosol providing device in a listening mode;

receive, during operation in the listening mode, data from the wireless communication interface of another aerosol providing device;

storing the received data in a memory of the aerosol supply device;

creating, using the wireless communication interface of the aerosol providing device, an announcement packet in an unconnected state including information related to the identification data and the announcement issuing state of the aerosol providing device;

transmitting the announcement packet via the wireless interface;

receiving a connectionless status request packet from the remote wireless device via the wireless communication interface;

creating, in response to receiving the request packet, using the wireless communication interface, a response packet in a connectionless state; And

send a response packet through the wireless interface,

wherein at least one packet of the announcement packet and the response packet includes received data from the storage device and data generated by the aerosol providing device and stored in the storage device.

[Principle 2] The method according to principle 1, wherein the data includes information describing the usage characteristics of the respective aerosol supply device.

[Principle 3] The method of principle 2, wherein the usage characteristics of the corresponding aerosol providing device comprise one or more values selected from the group including: battery properties, aerosol generation properties, aerosol environment properties, aerosol generation event properties, and erroneous or abnormal behavior.

[Principle 4] A method according to principle 2 or 3, wherein the characteristics of the use of the respective aerosol providing device are recorded and stored in the storage device during the use of the corresponding aerosol providing device.

[Principle 5] The method according to any one of principles 1 to 4, wherein at least one packet of an announcement packet and a response packet including received data from a memory device and data generated by an aerosol providing device and stored in a memory device is included in selecting the received data stored in the storage device and all data generated by the aerosol providing device and stored in the storage device.

[Principle 6] The method according to any one of principles 1 to 4, wherein at least one packet of an announcement packet and a response packet including received data from a memory device and data generated by an aerosol providing device and stored in a memory device includes selecting the received data stored in the storage device and the data generated by the aerosol providing device and stored in the storage device.

[Principle 7] A method according to principle 5 or 6, wherein the selection contains information related to a specific usage characteristic of the respective aerosol delivery device.

[Principle 8] A method according to principle 5 or 6, wherein the selection includes storing less than all of the received data.

[Principle 9] The method according to any one of principles 1-8, further comprising the step of:

deleting, prior to the step of storing the received data in the memory of the aerosol providing device, any data previously received from another aerosol providing device and stored in the memory of the aerosol providing device.

[Principle 10] The method of any one of principles 1 to 9, further comprising:

determining, prior to the step of storing the received data in the memory of the aerosol providing device, the number of aerosol providing devices from which data has been previously received and stored in the memory of the aerosol providing device; And

deleting, if the number of aerosol providing devices from which data has been received earlier is greater than or equal to the predetermined number, at least the oldest data before storing data received from another aerosol providing device.

[Principle 11]. The method according to any one of principles 1-10, wherein the data generated by the aerosol providing device and/or data received from another aerosol providing device includes location data for the respective aerosol providing device.

[Principle 12] The method according to any one of principles 1 to 11, wherein at least one packet of an announcement packet and a response packet including received data from a memory device and data generated by an aerosol providing device and stored in a memory device is included in yourself timestamp.

[Principle 13] The method of any one of principles 1-12, further comprising:

deleting, after a predetermined period of time, the received data stored in the storage device of the aerosol providing device.

[Principle 14] The method according to any one of principles 1 to 13, wherein the wireless communication interface is a Bluetooth low energy communication interface.

[Principle 15] An aerosol delivery device, comprising:

CPU

wireless communication interface;

a storage device that stores instructions that cause, when executed by the processor, the execution of the method according to any one of paragraphs. 1-14.

[Principle 16] A wireless device comprising:

CPU

wireless communication interface;

a storage device that stores instructions that cause, when executed by the processor, the execution of a method, comprising the steps of:

causing the operation of the wireless communication interface in a listening mode;

receiving, while operating in the listening mode, from the aerosol providing device, an announcement packet via the wireless communication interface;

transmitting, to the aerosol providing device, a connectionless status request packet via a wireless communication interface;

receiving, from the aerosol providing device, a response packet in an unconnected state via the wireless communication interface,

wherein at least one packet of the announcement packet and the response packet includes data generated by the aerosol providing device and data received by the aerosol providing device being another aerosol providing device.

Various embodiments of the claimed scope may suitably comprise, consist of, or consist essentially of, appropriate combinations of disclosed elements, components, features, parts, steps, means, etc., other than those specifically described herein. In addition, this disclosure may include other concepts not currently claimed but which may be claimed in the future, either in combination with or separately from the currently claimed features.

Claims (36)

1. A communication method implemented by an aerosol supply device, comprising the steps of: receiving a connectionless status request packet from the remote wireless device via a wireless communication interface of the aerosol providing device; generating, in response to receiving the request packet using the wireless communication interface, a response packet in a connectionless state; And transmit a response packet through the wireless interface, while the response packet includes first data from the memory of the aerosol providing device and second data generated by the aerosol providing device and stored in the memory. 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the second data includes information describing usage characteristics of the aerosol providing device. 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the usage characteristics of the aerosol providing device comprise one or more values selected from the group including: battery properties, aerosol generation properties, aerosol environment properties, aerosol generation event properties, and erroneous or abnormal behavior properties. . 4. The method according to claim 2 or 3, wherein the characteristics of the use of the aerosol providing device are recorded and stored in the storage device during the use of the aerosol providing device. 5. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1-4, wherein the response packet including the first data from the storage device and the second data generated by the aerosol delivery device and stored in the storage device includes fetching the first data stored in the storage device and all data generated by the delivery device. aerosol and stored in a storage device. 6. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1-4, wherein the response packet including the first data from the storage device and the data generated by the aerosol delivery device and stored in the storage device includes fetching the first data stored in the storage device and the data generated by the aerosol delivery device, and stored in a storage device. 7. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1-4, further comprising, when the first data contains received data received from another aerosol providing device, the steps of: receiving first data from a wireless communication interface of another aerosol providing device; And storing the received data in a memory of the aerosol providing device. 8. The method of claim 7, further comprising the step of: deleting, prior to the step of storing the received data in the memory of the aerosol providing device, any data previously received from another aerosol providing device and stored in the memory of the aerosol providing device. 9. The method of claim 8, further comprising the steps of: determining, prior to the step of storing the received data in the memory of the aerosol providing device, the number of aerosol providing devices from which data has been previously received and stored in the memory of the aerosol providing device; And deleting, if the number of aerosol providing devices from which data has been received earlier is greater than or equal to the predetermined number, at least the oldest data before storing the data received from another aerosol providing device. 10. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1-9, wherein the data generated by the aerosol providing device and/or the first data includes location data. 11. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1-10, wherein the response packet including the first data from the storage device and the second data generated by the aerosol providing device and stored in the storage device includes a timestamp. 12. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1-11, further comprising the step of: deleting, after a predetermined period of time, the first data stored in the memory of the aerosol supply device. 13. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1-12, wherein the wireless communication interface is a Bluetooth low energy communication interface. 14. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1-13, wherein the remote wireless device is a mobile communication device. 15. The method according to any one of paragraphs. 1-14, wherein the remote wireless device includes a mobile phone. 16. An aerosol supply device, comprising: CPU; wireless communication interface; a storage device that stores instructions that cause, when executed by the processor, the execution of the method according to any one of paragraphs. 1-15. 17. A wireless device for communication with an aerosol delivery device, comprising: CPU; wireless communication interface; a storage device that stores instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the execution of a method, comprising the steps of: transmitting, to the aerosol providing device, a connectionless status request packet via a wireless communication interface; receiving, from the aerosol providing device, a response packet in an unconnected state via the wireless communication interface, wherein the response packet includes first data and second data generated by the aerosol providing device.

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