Patent ID: 8581707

Claim:
A method for identifying an individual electrical device among a plurality of spatially-distributed electrical devices, each of the devices having associated therewith its own RF transceiver and its own microprocessor and associated memory for storing (i) an identification number and (ii) category information, where category information is: (a) information other than the device's identification number by which the device can be selectively communicated with, and (b) information that can be changed from time-to-time, the method comprising: (A) broadcasting, from a portable device, an RF discovery request to the spatially-distributed electrical devices requesting RF transmissions from the devices of identification information, the identification information comprising at least an identification number; (B) receiving, at the portable device, RF transmissions comprising identification numbers returned by devices as a result of step (A) and determining a perceived proximity for each received RF transmission; (C) ordering the identification numbers received in step (B) by perceived proximity; (D) selecting an identification number from the ordered identification numbers of step (C), the selected identification number corresponding to the device having the closest perceived proximity, and then, as selected by an operator, performing at least one of: (i) transmitting an RF signal to the device associated with the selected identification number so as to cause the device to produce a visual or audible signal; (ii) transmitting an RF signal to the device associated with the selected identification number so as to cause the device to store category information for the device; (iii) storing category information for the device associated with the selected identification number in a memory associated with the portable device and/or in a memory associated with a remote controller; and (E) as selected by an operator, repeating step (D) with at least one other identification number corresponding to a device having a perceived proximity greater than the closest perceived proximity; wherein the perceived proximity for each received RF transmission is determined from time of flight, received signal strength, or both time of flight and received signal strength.