The present invention will now be described in more detail in relation to the enclosed drawings, in which:
As shown in
The functioning of the present invention according to a first embodiment will now be described in relation to the previously described
According to the first embodiment the phone 10 and wrist watch 16 are first paired. Through this pairing, the local wireless communication units 28 and 42 of the phone 10 and wrist watch 16 identify each other and can after that communicate with each other. Pairing is known and will not be described further herein. After this pairing has been made, the user of the phone may activate a certain event notification function in which the phone 10 may transfer information to the wrist watch 16 to be displayed on the display 18 of that device.
According to the first embodiment, the phone transfers notifications of events which may include such information as information of missed calls, received messages, like e-mails, SMS or MMS messages, and scheduled meetings and appointments. In addition to this, it may also provide status information of the phone like remaining battery capacity.
The method according to the first embodiment may thus start with the phone control unit 22 detecting an event associated with a certain application. This is normally done when the phone is in a standby mode, i.e. there are no applications started and running. As an example, the phone control unit 22 is notified by the messaging handling unit 36 that a message has been received. A message is typically received via the communication unit 24 and antenna 26. The phone control unit 22 then notifies the event by sending first information to the wrist watch 16 using the communication unit 42 and antenna 44, act 50. This first information may include, apart from an indication that a message has been received, also a short summary of the message perhaps including an identity of the sender. This first information may thus be sent to the wrist watch 16 over a direct local wireless link. Thereafter the phone control unit 22 checks if a request for further information in the form of a trigger has been received from the wrist watch, act 52, and if it has not it goes on and notifies further events, act 50.
The event notification is then received by the communication unit 42 of the wrist watch 16 via antenna 44 and forwarded to the accessory control unit 40. Thus, the accessory control unit receives this first information from the phone 10, act 60, and then displays it on the display 18, act 62. Thereafter the accessory control unit 40 awaits user input via the button 20. By pressing the button 20, the user requests further information concerning the notified event. If no such further information is requested, act 64, the method in the wrist watch 16 is ended for this notification, act 66, but will be started anew when another event is notified. If further information is requested by the user pressing the button, act 64, the accessory control unit 40 orders the communication unit 42 to send a request for further information through sending a trigger signal to the phone 10 via the antenna 44, act 68.
Referring back to
The user may thereafter, of course, deactivate the event notification function.
Advantageously, as described herein, a user may easily view information associated with notified events normally provided on a limited size accessory display and instead view the information on his phone. This can be done automatically in the phone without the user having to navigate through the menu system of the phone for locating the application, starting the application, locating the cause of the event via this application and then selecting to display the further information. Thus, the invention improves the user-friendliness of both the phone and the wrist watch. The use of a trigger also reduces the complexity of the wrist watch, which makes it easier to keep it small and economical.
In case the event for which further information is desired is a missed phone call, the phone control unit 22 may activate the contacts application handling unit 38 instead of the call application handling unit 34 and locate the contact or person that tried to make the call. It may then present this further information on the phone display 12. In this way the user may directly find out who tried to call and may then also be provided with a picture of this person. If a calendar is provided, further details of a scheduled meeting or a scheduled appointment may be provided in the same way.
Now a second embodiment will be described with reference to
In the second embodiment the phone control unit 22 may receive an RSS feed from the wide area network communication unit 24. It may provide an identifier associated with this RSS feed that identifies the application handling unit and also where the further information is provided. In this case the further information may be provided on a web page and therefore the identifier may be a URL. It is however also possible that the identifier is an indirect identifier that points at the URL. For this reason there may be an identifier store provided in the phone 10 and in which the phone control unit 22 may look and find out which application to use and where the further information is to be found for some first information displayed on the wrist watch 16. In the following, the identifier will be assumed to be a URL.
The method may start with the phone control unit 22 forwarding the RSS feed to the wrist watch 16 and then also sending the identifier via the local link, act 70. It thereafter awaits the reception of an identifier, act 72, and if none is received from the wrist watch, act 72, the method is ended, act 74.
The accessory control unit 40 receives the RSS feed and identifier via the communication unit 42, act 82 (
The phone control unit, when it receives this identifier via the communication unit 28, act 72, investigates the identifier, sees that it is a URL and therefore starts a browser through activating the browsing handling application unit 32, act 76. Thereby a web browser is started. It then provides the browsing handling application unit with the URL so that further information associated with the first information may be located. This is done through the URL locating a web page where the further information is provided, act 78. Finally the further information of the web page is displayed, act 80.
In this way a user may receive a RSS feed, which may for instance provide stock market information, like information about a certain stock or weather forecast information in a compact form. If the user then wants to obtain further information, for instance regarding the whole stock market, he may then get further information by directly obtaining a web page on his phone. This is furthermore done without him having to perform a number of cumbersome steps on the phone. The phone fetches and displays the further information automatically without the user having to operate it.
The principles of using an identifier described here may also be used in the first embodiment, where an identifier is set for each notified event. When this is done it may be possible to store several such notifiers both in the phone and in the wrist watch. The user may then obtain further information about an earlier event than the last one through locating and returning the appropriate identifier.
The principles of using a trigger may also be used for the second embodiment in that a single trigger is used for providing the further information. The phone control unit then fetches a stored URL associated with an active or latest feed when a trigger is received and uses this for accessing a web page.
A third embodiment will next be described with reference being made to
Wrist watch 16 may be provided with a wireless signal receiving unit 46 for receiving broadcast radio or television signals. In this situation, the wrist watch may use speaker 47 for emitting sound of the radio. In this case, wrist watch 16 may furthermore be provided with several buttons (not shown), each associated with a corresponding radio or TV channel. Each such button is furthermore associated with an identifier of the radio or TV channel, which may be a URL or a pointer to a URL of a web page of the radio channel. Also the phone 10 may, in this case, have the URLs stored in a suitable identity store and if the identifier is a pointer also the pointer to the URL in order to be able to locate the URL.
The method will now be exemplified with the use of radio, for instance FM radio. The method starts with wrist watch 16 receiving a radio transmission, act 92, via antenna 46 and receiving unit 46. The sound of the radio transmission may then be output through speaker 47, act 94. The accessory control unit 40 then awaits the user to request further information via a button 20 of the wrist watch 16. If the user does not request further information, act 96, the method is ended, act 98, while if the user does, act 96, the identifier associated with the radio station is selected and fetched from identity store 49, act 100, whereupon the identifier is sent to the phone, act 102.
When the phone 10 receives this identifier, act 104, it starts the browser 32, act 106, locates the web page using this browser, act 108, and displays the further information of the web page on display 12, act 110. These operations are performed in the same way as in the second embodiment and the details will thus not be repeated here.
According to a third embodiment a user may directly and effortlessly receive further information in his phone about broadcast radio received in his accessory. This is furthermore done automatically in the phone without the user having to operate it.
The control unit and application handling units in the phone as implemented according to the present invention may be preferably provided in the form of one or more processors with corresponding memories containing the program code for performing the functions of these units. The communication units are provided as separate hardware modules, for instance in the form of ASIC circuits. They may however be combined in the same module. The different hardware units of the phone may furthermore be connected using a data bus.
In the wrist watch, the accessory control unit may also be provided in the same way. However it is normally preferred to have a much simpler structure, for instance, using a number of hard-wired logical circuits. The identity store is also an ordinary memory module such as a RAM, ROM or a flash memory. The local wireless communication unit may here also be provided in the form of an ASIC circuit.
The program code mentioned above can also be provided on one or more computer program products such as a CD ROM disc 112 as depicted in
There are a number of further variations that can be made to the concepts discussed in addition to those already mentioned. It is possible to use communication techniques other than Bluetooth. It is for instance possible to use IR communication instead. It is furthermore not necessary that the central portable communication device communicates via a wide area network. It may for instance communicate with a local WLAN, which may in turn be connected to a network such as the Internet. The different described embodiments may furthermore be combined either partially or all together at the same time.
Although the present invention has been described in connection with specific embodiments, it is not intended to be limited to the specific form set forth herein. Rather, the scope of the present invention is limited only by the accompanying claims.