Patent ID: 8818261

Claim:
A wireless station comprising: a transmitter to wirelessly transmit discovery packets to a proximately located network device, wherein the discovery packets include a request for configuration and state information associated with the proximately located network device, and the discovery packets are transmitted at a first power; a receiver to wirelessly receive an input from the proximately located network device, the input including the configuration and state information associated with the proximately located network device, wherein the input is transmitted by the proximately located network device at the first power, and the configuration and state information includes one or more of a service set identifier (SSID) parameter, a security capability parameter, a radio frequency capability parameter, or a network capability parameter; an engine to manage a configuration of the proximately located network device, the engine to indicate the configuration and state information associated with the proximately located network device; and a power selector to control a power level output by the transmitter, enable transmission at the first power during configuration of the proximately located network device, and enable transmission at a second power after configuration of the proximately located network device, wherein the first power is lower than the second power, the first power helps prevent snooping during the configuration, and the second power enables wireless communication with one or more other devices after the configuration of the proximately located network device, wherein the proximately located network device is a repeater that extends a range of an access point on a wireless local area network (WLAN).