Embodiments disclosed herein relate to reducing a power consumption of an electronic device while maintaining some functionality of the electronic device while the electronic device is in a low power mode. The device may be in the low power mode due to a battery level being below a threshold. If the battery level is below the threshold, the electronic device may enter the low power mode. However, before entering the low power mode, some functionality of an application processor may be transferred to a communication controller. Once the functionality is transferred, the application processor may be disabled to reduce power consumption while maintaining functionality of the application processor. The electronic device may also utilize various communication protocols to communicate with a peripheral device. Even though the electronic device may be in the low power mode, the communication controller may be used to cause the peripheral device to perform various actions.

The present invention provides a control method applied to an electronic device is disclosed, wherein the electronic device includes a processor and a wireless network module, and the control method includes the steps of: generating a determination result by determining if the wireless network module needs to transmit a packet; and when the determination result indicates that the wireless network module needs to transmit the packet, reducing a frequency of a clock signal used by the processor during a packet transmission.

A method of operating a wireless communication device (101) includes, when operating in a connected mode (301), prior to a transition (309) to a disconnected mode (302, 303): receiving, from a communications network (100), at least one downlink message (4021, 4011) comprising configuration information indicative of at least one configuration of a sporadically-on transmission (900) of a reference signal (901, 4001). The method also includes, when operating in the disconnected mode (302, 303) in accordance with a discontinuous reception cycle (390): monitoring for the reference signal (901, 4001) sporadically transmitted by the communications network (100) in accordance with the at least one configuration. The reference signal (901, 4001) is suitable for maintaining synchronization in a further communication with the communications network (100) during an on-period (396) of the discontinuous reception cycle.

An electronic device supporting power consumption reduction can be operated in a power saving mode or in an active mode, and the electronic device includes a first processor and a second processor. The first processor is configured to be powered off when the electronic device is in the power saving mode. The second processor is configured to, when the electronic device is in the power saving mode, control peripheral hardware associated with a local bus of the first processor. The peripheral hardware includes at least one of the following: a display unit, an input unit, a BLUETOOTH unit, and a sensing unit.

Embodiments disclosed herein relate to reducing a power consumption of an electronic device while maintaining some functionality of the electronic device while the electronic device is in a low power mode. The device may be in the low power mode due to a battery level being below a threshold. If the battery level is below the threshold, the electronic device may enter the low power mode. However, before entering the low power mode, some functionality of an application processor may be transferred to a communication controller. Once the functionality is transferred, the application processor may be disabled to reduce power consumption while maintaining functionality of the application processor. The electronic device may also utilize various communication protocols to communicate with a peripheral device. Even though the electronic device may be in the low power mode, the communication controller may be used to cause the peripheral device to perform various actions.

A method and an apparatus for controlling a sleep mode in a portable terminal having a main controller and a sub-controller operating at low power are provided. The method includes detecting, by the sub-controller, a first sensor signal generated by a first sensor when the main controller is in the sleep mode, extracting a sensed pattern from the detected first sensor signal, determining whether the extracted sensed pattern is substantially identical with a preset wake-up pattern, and cancelling the sleep mode by waking-up the main controller when the extracted sensed pattern is substantially identical with the wake-up pattern.

A hydrant apparatus may be employed to monitor a water distribution system, and may include a sensor, a processor, and a local clock source. The apparatus may wake from a low power mode to a sensing mode, receive the sensor data, associate the sensor data with a first local clock time, and return the apparatus to the low power mode from the sensing mode. The apparatus may subsequently wake to an operational mode, determine a second local clock time subsequent to the first local clock time, associate an external clock time with the second local clock time, determine an offset for the received sensor data based on the first local clock time and the association between the second local clock time and the external clock time, and transmit the sensor data and the offset to an external monitoring system.

Disclosed herein are techniques to enable remote discovery of connectivity capabilities and remote connection of devices in a power efficient manner. In particular, discovery and connection requests for connectivity capabilities utilizing a first radio may be communicated using a second radio, the second radio utilizing a lower amount of power relative to the first radio. For example, connectivity capabilities such as Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, WiGig, Zigbee can be discovered and connection request communicated using a Bluetooth radio.

This document describes techniques (400, 500, 600) and apparatuses (100, 700) for implementing sensor-based near-field communication (NFC) authentication. These techniques (400, 500, 600) and apparatuses (100, 700) enable a computing device (102) to detect, in a low-power state, environmental variances indicating proximity with an NFC-enabled device (104) with which to authenticate. In some embodiments, various components of a computing device (102) in a sleep state are activated to process environmental variance(s), perform authentication operations, and/or an indicate initiation of authentication operations to a user.

Conditional activation and deactivation of a microprocessor. A hardware portion of an apparatus performs packet processing on received data, where the hardware portion selectively decodes the received data. A microprocessor performs data processing on decoded data, where the microprocessor is conditionally activated for performing the data processing and is conditionally deactivated when not performing the data processing. An output portion receives processed data and audibly renders the processed data without requiring the microprocessor.