Patent ID: 8537733

Claim:
A method comprising: determining that a current power mode in a first of a plurality of wireless network devices in an ad-hoc wireless network should be changed; transmitting a power mode switch request to one or more additional wireless network devices of the plurality of wireless network devices in the ad-hoc wireless network in response to determining that the current power mode in the first of the plurality of wireless network devices in the ad-hoc wireless network should be changed; determining whether to transmit, to the one or more additional wireless network devices in the ad-hoc wireless network, a notification in a beacon frame to change the current power mode based, at least in part, on one or more responses to the power mode switch request received from the one or more additional wireless network devices; transmitting a first predefined value in the beacon frame to the one or more additional wireless network devices to change the current power mode of the one or more additional wireless network devices, in response to determining that the notification to change the current power mode should be transmitted; and transmitting a second predefined value in the beacon frame to the one or more additional wireless network devices to maintain the current power mode of the one or more additional wireless network devices, in response to determining that the notification to change the current power mode should not be transmitted.