Patent ID: 7228447

Claim:
In a controller associated with a power source module having a battery and a communications interface electrically coupled to the controller, the power source module disposed within a battery-powered sign, a method for notifying an external monitoring device of a power condition of the battery, the method comprising: detecting that a power level of the battery has reached a threshold condition, the threshold condition indicating a decrease in power of the battery relative to an initial power level; activating the communications interface to establish a communications channel with the external monitoring device in response to detecting that the power level of the battery has reached the threshold condition; transmitting a notification, related to the threshold condition of the battery, to the external monitoring device through the communications channel, the notification indicating that the power source module disposed within the battery-powered sign requires replacement; and deactivating the communications interface to discontinue the established communications channel based on a reception condition related to the external monitoring device; wherein the power source module comprises the battery, the controller, and the communications interface as part of a replaceable unit; detecting comprises detecting that the power level of the battery has reached the threshold condition, the threshold condition indicating a decrease in power of the battery relative to an initial power level, the threshold condition being configured as the power level of the battery that permits continued operation of the battery powered device for a time period sufficient to allow replacement of the battery; activating the communications interface comprises activating the communications interface to establish a communications channel with the external monitoring through the Internet, activating further comprising initiating a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol request to obtain an Internet Protocol address, and opening a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol connection with the external monitoring device; transmitting the notification, related to the threshold condition of the battery, to the external monitoring device through the communications channel comprises: generating the notification, the notification indicating that the power source module disposed within the battery-powered sign requires replacement, including a Media Access Control (MAC) address and a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID) with the notification to identify a location of the power source module on the Internet; and transmitting the notification to the external monitoring device using the Hyper Text Transfer Protocol; and deactivating the communications interface to discontinue the established communications channel comprises: terminating operation of the communications interface to discontinue the established communications channel to reduce consumption of power from the battery by the communications interface.