Patent ID: 11908638
Assignee: LUTRON TECHNOLOGY COMPANY LLC
Field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H  G  Y | IPC G  H

Claim 0:
1. A method to communicate between illumination devices included in a plurality of networked illumination devices, comprising:
receiving, by control circuitry, a first signal that includes information indicative of a duration of a maintained actuation of a user actuatable element;
determining, by the control circuitry, whether the duration of the maintained actuation of the user actuatable element exceeds a defined hold time, wherein the defined hold time includes
a mask value greater than or equal to a temporal duration of the greatest communication latency between at least two of the plurality of networked illumination devices;
retrieving, from memory circuitry, data representative of a starting value associated with an output parameter for each of the plurality of networked illumination devices responsive to the determination that the maintained actuation of the user actuatable element exceeds the defined hold time;
causing, by the control circuitry, a communication of a command to at least one other of the plurality of networked illumination devices, wherein the command includes an instruction to begin changing the output parameter of each of the plurality of networked illumination devices;
receiving, by the control circuitry, an input indicative of a discontinuation of the maintained actuation of the user actuatable element;
determining, by the control circuitry, an ending value associated with the output parameter for each of the plurality of networked illumination devices responsive to receipt of the input indicative of the discontinuation of the maintained actuation of the user actuatable element;
causing, by the control circuitry, a communication of the determined ending value associated with the output parameter to each of the plurality of networked illumination devices, the communication to cause each of the plurality of networked illumination devices to reach the determined ending value
over an adjustment period equal to or less than the mask value, wherein the adjustment period commences with the receipt of the input indicative of the discontinuation of the maintained actuation of the user actuatable element; and
causing, by the control circuitry, a replacement of the data representative of the starting value associated with the output parameter in the memory circuitry with data representative of the determined ending value associated with the output parameter.