Patent ID: 8402174

Claim:
A method to handle a plurality of sensors in a context aware platform comprising: providing an application programming interface to enable communication between a provider manager and a plurality of context providers, generating, in response to a request from a client device for sensor data, a hint signal based on predicted usage levels of the plurality of sensors, wherein the hint signal is to specify preferred activity level of the plurality of sensors, activating a first set of sensors coupled to the context provider if the preferred activity level for the first set of sensors is set to activate state in the hint signal, wherein the plurality of sensors include the first set of sensors, getting contextual information from the first set of sensors using the application programming interface, wherein the communication between the context provider and the provider manager includes either a synchronous access mechanism or an asynchronous access mechanism, loading a context provider of the plurality of context providers if a first value is stored in a load field of the hint signal, and unloading the context provider if a second value is stored in the load field of the hint signal.