Patent claim: The apparatus of claim 8 wherein the predetermined response criteria comprises the one or more response messages including certain types of messages at least one of the certain types of messages having a measured signal strength at or above a predetermined signal strength level.

Related passage: Referring to FIG.1 according to an alternative embodiment after the APC function is enabled 101 the software determines if automatic gain control is available for the host device.If the gain control is available the software attenuates the receiver gain to restrict its reception range.After temporarily saving 308 the DI 105 as the second set the APC function requests a measurement 107 of the RSSI within the Bluetooth radio.The associated reading 107 is compared 108 to a predefined threshold level.This predefined threshold 108 level limits the APC function to only those devices 202205 that are within a given range 207 208 of the host cell phone 201.If the RSSI reading 107 is above the threshold 108 then the RSSI measurement is saved 109 along with the DI 105 as the second set and the APC function scans 102 for another broadcasting Bluetooth device.If another device is found 103 then the process of reading the DI 105 is repeated.If another device is not found 103 then the APC function verifies that the DI has been saved 104 and initiates a comparison 110 to determine which qualified device will be subject to the pairing operation.The APC function will select 111 the qualified device that has the highest RSSI value.Once this device is selected 111 the APC function may set a timer 112 that limits the amount of time for which the host device 201 will attempt to pair 209.After setting the timer 112 the APC initiates the pairing operation 113.As part of the pairing operation 113 the ACP function automatically assigns one of the standard PIN such as 0000 as a passkey to the qualified device.If the pairing is finished 114 the APC function will verify that the pairing operation is accepted 115 by the qualified device.If the pairing operation is accepted 115 or established then the APC function saves the pairing information 116 and connects 117 210 to the qualified device.After connecting 117 210 the APC generates a message 118 that informs the user that the APC function is successful in connecting.If the pairing operation is not finished 114 then the APC function will check 119 the pairing timer to determine if the timer has expired.If the timer has not expired 119 then the APC function will continue the pairing operation 113 with the qualified device.If the pairing timer has expired 119 then the APC function will terminate pairing and check 120 if there are other qualified devices saved in the memory or the second set.If the pairing operation fails due to an incorrect PIN the ACP function will retry the pairing operation by sending an alternate PIN such as 11234.This process will be repeated until pairing is successful or all standard PINs have been issued.If the pairing operation fails for a specific reason such as a rejection by the qualifieddevice then the APC function will terminate pairing and check 120 if there are other qualified devices saved in the memory or the second set.If the pairing is finished 114 but the target device did not accept 115 the pairing request then the APC function will also check 120 if there are other qualified devices saved in the memory or the second set.If there are more devices saved in memory 120 then the APC function will select from the remaining qualified devices that device which has the greatest RSSI value 121 and restart the pairing operation by setting the pairing timer 112.If there are no additional qualified devices stored in the memory 119 then the APC function may initiate 102 a new scan for more Bluetooth devices.