Patent ID: 8660490

Claim:
A wireless device , comprising: a transceiver module, operable to transmit data packets having a transmission power level that can be selected from among a number of different power levels and including information of said transmission power level, and to receive data packets from surrounding devices; and a control unit, connected to said transceiver module and configured to control transmission and reception of said data packets by said transceiver module, wherein said control unit is configured to carry out processing operations on said data packets received from said surrounding devices during a detection time interval in order to determine, on board of said wireless device, proximity relations between said wireless device and said surrounding devices, wherein said transceiver module is operable to implement a transceiving protocol including cycles of transmission and reception of said data packets; each of said transmission and reception cycles being separated from a contiguous transmission and reception cycle by a random wait time, the duration of which is dynamically adjustable by said control unit in order to reduce a power consumption of said wireless device, and wherein the timing of said random wait time is determined in a random way within a given time interval; the duration of said given time interval being dynamically adjustable by said control unit and determined, in a current transmission and reception cycle, as a function of a number of data packets received during a given number of preceding transmission and reception cycles; said duration being increased when said number of received data packets decreases so as to reduce said sower consumption when said wireless device is not in the proximity of said surrounding devices.