Patent ID: 8750832

Claim:
A method for connecting a personal mobile device to a vehicle communication unit, comprising the steps of: (a) detecting the presence of an occupant in a vehicle having a vehicle communication unit that communicates wirelessly via short range wireless communication; (b) determining the presence of a personal mobile device within the vehicle in response to the detection using the short range wireless communication; (c) determining a device type associated with the mobile device; (d) determining that the device type is one for which establishment of a wireless communication link between the mobile device and vehicle communication unit is potentially desired by the occupant; (e) presenting to the occupant in the vehicle a prompt inquiring whether the communication link is desired; (f) receiving from the occupant an indication that the communication link is desired; and (g) establishing the communication link between the mobile device and vehicle communication unit in response to the indication, wherein at least one iteration of steps (a) through (g) is carried out for a particular vehicle trip and wherein the method further comprises carrying out another iteration of steps (a) and (b) on a different vehicle trip involving a newly-detected mobile device in the vehicle, and thereafter: determining either that the newly-detected mobile device is one for which authorization to establish the communication link has previously been given or that the newly-detected mobile device is one for which authorization to establish the communication link has previously been denied; establishing the communication link between the vehicle communication unit and newly-detected mobile device without prompting any occupants if authorization has previously been given; and skipping at least steps (e) through (g) if authorization has previously been denied, wherein the skipping step further comprises determining that no prompting of occupants should be carried out based on a counter indicating the number of times the newly-detected mobile device has been detected since authorization for the newly-detected mobile device was last denied.