Patent ID: 8248972

Claim:
A method of operating a wireless mesh network comprising a central node and a plurality of bidirectional nodes in bidirectional wireless communication with the central node, each bidirectional node having a respective wireless communication path to the central node that is either a direct path or an indirect path through one or more intermediate bidirectional nodes serving as repeater nodes, each bidirectional node being characterized by a number of intermediate bidirectional nodes forming a respective wireless communication path to the central node, the method comprising: initiating a first data communication comprising a preamble from the central node to a first bidirectional node using a first frequency channel selected from a plurality of frequency channels; setting a receive frequency of the central node to a second frequency channel selected from the plurality of frequency channels; in response to the first bidirectional node receiving the first data communication, transmitting an acknowledgement message from the first bidirectional node to the central node using the second frequency channel; and in response to the central node failing to receive the acknowledgement message within a defined time limit, retransmitting the first data communication from the central node to the first bidirectional node using the second frequency channel.