Patent ID: 7543163

Claim:
A method of monitoring one or more conditions of a system that is temporarily in a relatively low-powered mode as compared to a more normal, higher powered mode where the monitoring is to be followed by intelligent response to one or more detected changes of one or more of the monitored conditions, the method comprising: (a) using a set of one or more, low-powered analog to monitor said one or more conditions for respectively detecting changes of condition that are predefined as alert-worthy changes, wherein one or more of said alert-worthy changes of condition are detected by comparing a respectively monitored analog signal relative to a correspondingly supplied reference signal while said system is in its more normal, higher powered mode rather than the relatively low-powered mode, adjusting at least one of said reference signals as respectively supplied to one or more given ones of the low-powered analog comparators, where said adjusting counter-compensates for one or more errors in signaling pathways of each respective one of the given low-powered analog comparators where said counter-compensated-for errors include at least one of a comparator offset error and a DAC offset error; (b) in response to one of said analog comparators detecting an alert-worthy change of condition, quickly starting up an oscillator within one millisecond or less of said detecting of the alert-worthy change of condition; and (c) using the quickly started up oscillator to clock a first logical responding unit and to thereby enable the first logical responding unit to respond to the detecting of an alert-worthy change of condition by one or more of said low-powered analog comparators.